The Q-REC project entitled “European Quality Labelling and Certification of Electronic Health Record systems (EHRs)" is a Specific Support Action for the strategic objective 2.4.11 "Integrated BioMedical Information for better Health" as addressed in Call 4 of the Information Society Technologies Work Programme.

The project relates to the Action Plan of the eHealth Communication COM (2004)356 by supporting mainly "4.2.5 Conformity testing and accreditation for an eHealth market" but also "4.2.2.2: Interoperability of Electronic Health records". The scope of Q-REC thus neither extends to the national roadmaps nor the "overall" eHealth interoperability issues but is restricted to interoperability among Electronic Health Record systems, with as its principal focus, Conformance Testing and Certification. Q-REC is not a co-ordination project but a Specific Support Action (SSA) which aims at complementing (bottom-up wise) the existing e-Health ERA Co-ordination Project "Towards the establishment of a European e Health Research Area", which main goal is to coordinate the planning of eHealth R&D and coherent national roadmaps in Europe.

For more information on EuroRec/Q-REC Activities read the following Q-REC document (pdf).

Abstract

The main objective of Q-REC is to create an efficient, credible and sustainable mechanism for the certification of EHR system in Europe by addressing mainly:

• EHR Systems Quality Labelling and Certification Development, thereby
  • producing a State of the Art Report on EHR-Certification Schemas as already implemented in at least three European countries;
  • performing a Pan-European Requirements Assay;
  • proposing a Labelling Terminology and Functional Profiles for EHRs to be certified;
  • comparing and harmonising the EHR-Certification Procedures at a European level;
  • drafting Model Certification Guidelines and Procedures;
  • planning the Validation of the Guidelines.

• Resources for EHR Interoperability, including
  • the register of Conformance Criteria and Guidance Documents for obtaining EHR Certification;
  • an inventory and guidelines for EHR Archetypes;
  • the registration of Coding Schemes in Europe (as mandated by CEN/TC 251);
  • an inventory of relevant EHR related standards;
  • a register of XML Schemas and Open Source components for EHRs.

• Benchmarking Services
  • Benchmarking Services Manual for Quality Labelling and Certification;
  • preparing the Business Plan for new EHR-Certification related Services.

The co-ordinating partner is the EuroRec Institute, which is the overarching network of already existing national ProRec centres. EuroRec's main mission is to promote high quality Electronic Health Record systems (EHRs) throughout Europe. The network and its centres are platforms wherein a wide variety of stakeholders are involved. The coordination with healthcare authorities will be done through the collaboration with the eHealth ERA consortium and its European Health Care Authorities (HCA) / Ministries groups. Both platforms (EuroRec and eHealth ERA) will assure the necessary bottom-up and top-down approaches for the adequate assessment of needs and for the optimal choice of methods for quality labelling and certification of EHRs in Europe.

Subcontractors Q-REC

(*) The Q-REC project follows the definition of Electronic Health Record (EHR) as given by ISO, i.e. "Repository of information regarding the health status of a subject of care, in computer processable form (source: ISO TR 20514:2004)