Collaboration of Heterogeneous Medical Information Systems in the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

Preservation of health data and monitoring of patients' treatment history is the basis for adequate treatment and prediction of potential diseases or conditions. Medical information systems (MISes) make it easier for healthcare professionals to search for and review all existing medical patient data for adequate treatment and provide the ability to warn of potential illnesses depending on previous treatments. However, MIS is often organized locally, at the healthcare institution or city level, and it is not possible to directly access data located in other healthcare facilities. Therefore, the collaboration of healthcare institutions' MISes is inevitable. This paper discusses the problem realization of heterogeneous MIS collaboration on the example of MIS MEDIS.NET collaboration with other healthcare institutions' MISes in the Republic of Serbia, which is reflected in the exchange of medical data for a particular patient. The described concept can be applied to the collaboration of other types of information systems, i.e., creating a distributed centralized system.