Critical success factors for the rollout of the eHealth platform
Frank Robben, General Manager eHealth

eHealth is the cornerstone of modernisation in healthcare. Frank Robben sums up the critical success factors for the rollout of the eHealth platform.

eHealth is the crescendo point of modernisation in healthcare. General Manager Frank Robben sees himself as an orchestra conductor. “eHealth does not have any of its own computer files. It coordinates, simplifies and secures the exchange of health data among doctors, patients, pharmacists, Riziv, hospitals, health funds, the Public Health department and the Flemish Government.”

A few challenges lurk around the corner before eHealth can be rolled out successfully. “We have to get all of the players to cooperate by convincing them of the system’s added value. The patient’s role cannot be underestimated here. Imagine that you have two doctors in your street: one uses paper files, while the other does everything via GMD. But will you as a patient then opt for the second doctor, and therefore for technical progress?” Information security and protection of privacy are also critical success factors. “Data exchange is only possible between authorised persons. The data is encrypted so that no one apart from the sender and addressee can read it, not even the eHealth platform.”

The intention is not for eHealth to call healthcare institutions’ current independence and distribution of tasks into question. “eHealth respects existing regional cooperation initiatives and hospital information flows, and does not create extra work for care providers. On the contrary, it represents enormous added value because administrative troubles will decline sharply when doctors do not have to fill in papers in front of their patients each time, but can simply communicate with health funds by computer, for example.”