Patient Portal Integration - A Native IHE Connector Implementation for PEHR.

Providing patients with access to their medical data has recently evolved as a topic in several countries. Different approaches are possible. For example patient portals are used for patient access towards medical data. The University Hospital Heidelberg is engaged in a research project to develop a personal cross-enterprise electronic health record (PEHR). The objective of this work is to describe the architecture and implementation of a component called IHE Connector which represents the native IHE-based integration between the patient portal and the PEHR core components. The architecture of the PEHR is accepted based on international standards. The core components consist out of ready to use software products like a master patient index. The patient portal has been developed using Liferay framework. The IHE Connector is mainly based on the Open eHealth Integration Platform (IPF) Framework, which has been deeply integrated into the patient portal to support the needed IHE transactions. Several IHE profiles for sharing documents and patient information are supported by the IHE Connector. As IPF already provides interfaces for some IHE profiles others had to be developed from scratch. The IHE Connector can not only be used for connectivity between patient portal and PEHR core, but also provide connectivity for third party apps and healthcare providers' information systems.