Available Deliverables of the Hungarian PROREC Centre
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Available Deliverables of the Hungarian PROREC Centre |
Dr. Juan Reig, email sadiel@sadiel.es
o/c Sadiel SA, Tel. (+34 5)
4278198
Avda. Republica Argentina,
25 Fax. (+34 5) 4274623
41011 Sevilla. Espańa
Dr. W. Ceusters werner.ceusters@rug.ac.be
PROREC-BE VZW Tel: (+32 53) 629545
Hazenakkerstraat 20 Fax: (+32 53) 62 95 55
B-9520 Zonnegem, Belgium
György Szántó szanto@sztaki.hu
MTA SZTAKI Tel: (+36 1) 209 5270
Lágymányosi u. 11. Fax: (+36 1) 209 5269
1111 Budapest Hungary
The main goal of PROREC is to promote and co-ordinate the European wide convergence towards comprehensive, communicable and secure Electronic Healthcare Records (EHCR). This is achieved by co-ordinating and supporting the European Commission’s Telematics Applications for Health projects and other initiatives in the area of EHCRs, both nationally and internationally. The main objective of this initiative is that in a reasonable time scale a EEHCR is installed in all Member States such that Health Care data originating from various sources are communicable and understandable. Managing the convergence is PROREC’s main mission, and this will be realised by undertaking monitoring, assessment and dissemination activities.
One of the intermediate goals of this purposeful strategy is to ensure that bodies such as CEN/TC251 at the one hand, and EC Informatics programmes at the other hand, meet their purpose of providing standards and highest quality research to enhance the care process for patients and users. But perhaps even more important, PROREC’s aim is to reach all actors in the field, such that even the smallest initiative taken “independently” by some organisation, company or user-group, contributes effectively to the common objective.
As a consequence, PROREC follows a workplan by which external areas of waster and inefficiency are minimised, human and financial resources are used effectively, Health Care consequences of given policies and constraints are exposed, and excellence and creative forces are harvested as much as possible. To achieve its mission, PROREC also incorporates in its strategy awareness of the prenormative and precompetitive requirements, the need to develop and validate standards, the need for ethical products in the Health Care marketplace, and the need for strategic management of the links.
The success of the Belgian and Spanish national Prorec centre are a
major incentive to create Prorec centres in all Member States.
Available Deliverables of the Hungarian PROREC Centre
These deliverables can be obtained from:György Szántó szanto@sztaki.hu
MTA SZTAKI Tel: (+36 1) 209 5270
Lágymányosi u. 11. Fax: (+36 1) 209 5269
1111 Budapest Hungary
Main characteristics of a PROREC centre - How Prorec centres can achieve their objectives
The mission of a PROREC centre is to satisfy the needs of all actors playing in the electronic healthcare record theatre. This is the best way to ensure the overall objective: the widespread use of electronic healthcare record systems.
Satisfying the needs of various actors is a more difficult task than doing it for just one actor. This is specifically the case when conflicting needs exist. Any conflict of interest of a PROREC centre with respect to a relevant actor, should be ruled out. This should be the case from various viewpoints.
A PROREC centre cannot be “owned” by or has direct relations with one or a restricted number of commercial companies that act directly on the electronic healthcare record market by developing, selling or providing consultancy for one or a restricted number of electronic healthcare record systems. Ownership by all actors could be acceptable, but this is very difficult to achieve. The same holds for non-commercial entities that are players themselves: governmental institutions, user-groups or associations, etc.
It is better to opt for a legal structure to which the notion of ownership is not applicable. Usually this can be realised by founding the centre as a non-profit organisation.
Although nowadays national and regional political interest in electronic healthcare records and healthcare telematics is high, a PROREC centre should refrain from being politically coloured. It should see politicians and governmental policy makers as being potential clients rather than instigators or benefactors.
Concerning this issue, a PROREC centre should act as a “bridge” between developers and politicians, making the information flow in both senses, from developers to governmental policy makers and vice versa. Thus a PROREC centre should be a forum where player actors in the EHCR domain could freely transmit to governmental institutions their opinions on existing legislation or their suggestions on future legislation as well as other issues.
A PROREC centre should be self supporting. One mechanism (especially during the initiation phase) is to accept grants. Such grants may not imply obligations that are conflicting with the overall objectives of PROREC as a project, or of the national PROREC centre itself.
A PROREC centre may accept membership fees in change for some benefits that members may enjoy as compared to non-members. The benefits and fees must however be defined in such a way that it is not possible to become particularly dependent from one or a restricted number of members.
Financial independence is best guaranteed if the centre operates as a service organisation, being paid primarily for services on demand of interested actors. Nevertheless, this is a delicate aspect because it could be in direct conflict with the “Independence from any actor” issue, but the professionalism of the people that integrate the centre will assure this fact.
This type of independence applies more to the main actors within the centre (i.e. those people giving the centre a “face”), than the centre itself. Preferably, there should be no personal relationships between the personnel of the centre, and employees of actors to whom services potentially can be delivered. Part-time employees or consultants of the centre, should not be employed by relevant actors for the remainder of their time.
Deep understanding of the domain and all actors playing in it
Prorec centres should be competence centres. They should only work with personnel that have proven experience in the domain of healthcare telematics in general, and electronic healthcare records in particular. This is only possible when close contact is kept with all players on a daily basis. Continuous self-education is a major part of the internal workings of a Prorec centre.
Being recognized as a trustworthy party
Knowledge of the field alone is not enough to convince other parties that you have this knowledge. Also, having extreme competence in a specific area may be seen as a threat for others who work on the same domain.
Therefore, one of the tasks for a PROREC centre is to reach enough credibility with the objective of being recognised as a trustworthy and neutral party by all actors, because without it, the recommendations and even the capacity of accreditation of such centres would not have the expected impact
How can a PROREC centre reach such objective? On the one hand by the prestige of the actors (not only the founders but also all those members showing their willingness to participate providing their experience and knowledge) On the other hand, by reaching as many actors as possible. It is essential for a PROREC centre to establish liaisons with standardisation bodies such as the national mirror groups of CEN/TC 251 or other national scientific societies.
It is important that a minimum logistic support is available to run a national Prorec centre. There is the need to conduct promotion activities, as well as to organise workshops, seminars and meetings with representatives of all actors in the field. What is important however, is that a PROREC centre should focus its activities on being self-supporting, so in the first years of running it should generate enough awareness among the society of its country, attaining that the centre after three years could finance its activities by itself, selling its services to specific demands and getting membership fees, grants, etc.
On the other hand, the structure of a PROREC centre should be flexible
enough for enabling to be a dynamic organisation. It should be able to
respond quickly to the possible answers or situations and react
to any event. Therefore it should not be a bureaucratic and slow
organisation.
