Interoperability model for e-health systems in heterogenous environments: a case study of the university of Zambia health services.

Electronic Health Records (EHR) Systems have over the recent years become an integral part of any effective Health Care System. Volumes of data is kept in heterogeneous systems and although continued health care highly depends on knowledge acquired from medical history captured at various points, this information is usually not readily available. The University of Zambia’s (UNZA) Electronic Health Records (EHR) System does not interoperate with
administrative systems. This study proposes a model to improve the efficiency of healthcare at UNZA Clinic by introducing an EHR system that applies interoperability with the University’s Human Resource and Student Information Systems at as less a cost a possible. The study was guided by two objectives: (1) A baseline study was conducted to evaluate the performance of the currently implemented modules of the Electronic System at UNZA Clinic
to address the first objective. 200 questionnaires were distributed during clinic visits with 150 of them being used to collect data from within University community. Of these, 50 were given to members of staff that benefit from the health services, 75 to students and 50 to the healthcare providers. The remaining 25 questionnaires were shared amongst staff dependents and the community outside the University. Our results suggest that there is need to improve
the performance of the current system. (2) A model has been proposed to address the second objective for the design of a prototype with interoperability.
In achieving interoperability in an eHealth Records System we proposed a Service Oriented Architecture using Web Services. To this effect, a model has been developed that incorporates mechanisms to help improve efficiency in a health records system and successfully implemented interoperability with a non-health related system.