title: UUMA. Regional eHealth services in the hospital district of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS).
abstract: The UUMA approach is based on a stepwise implementation of integrated regional healthcare services to create a virtually borderless healthcare organisation--a patient centred virtual workspace. In the virtual workspace multi-professional teams and patients collaborate and share information regardless of time and place. Presently the regional ehealth network is comprised of four different integrated services between primary, secondary and tertiary care within the county of Uusimaa. The strategic healthcare modules consist of an (1) ereferral and econsultation network, (2) a knowledge-based disease management platform, (3) PACS system and (4) a universal model for integrated regional services between professionals and patients by a link directory service. The ereferral between primary and secondary care not only speeds up the transfer, but also offers an option for communication in the form of econsultation between general practitioners and hospital specialists. By sharing information and knowledge remote econsultations create a new working environment for integrated delivery of eServices between the health care providers. Last year over 60,000 eReferrals were transferred between health care providers. When associated with viewing of patient data through the link directory, interactive econsultations enable supervised care leading to the reduction of outpatient visits and more timely appointments. The link directory service extends the dimensions of networking between organizations by combining legacy systems within regional primary and secondary care. The link directory is an interface to diverse patient information systems, like HUSpacs, containing links pointing to the actual patient data located in remote information systems. The original data including images can be viewed with a web browser, but data can be accessed only with the patient's informed consent. The chronic disease management system is disease specific: information is utilised in parallel to viewing other relevant medical data through the link directory. We aim to create a new working environment for professionals by incorporation of innovative information and communication technology, new organisation of work and re-engineering of workflows. The citizen has an active role in deciding on the use of his medical information, participating in decisions on his care, carrying out guided self-care and taking steps of pro-active prevention.
authors.affiliation: Helsinki University Central Hospital, Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa, Finland.
authors.forename: Kari
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Harno
mesh_terms: D003195:Computer Communication Networks / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated; D019468:Disease Management; D005387:Finland; D006801:Humans; D008491:Medical Informatics Applications; D011873:Radiology Information Systems; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D014504:Urban Health