Interoperability and health policy in Spain. The case of digital medical records from the intergovernmental perspective / Interoperabilidad y política sanitaria en España. El caso de la historia clínica digital desde una perspectiva intergubernamental

Abstract

During the last years, different interoperability projects have been undertaken around the world. Interoperability of Electronic Government is an enabler to share information and knowledge, and it is essential to fulfill some of the promises of Information and Communication Technologies in the public sector. This article presents the preliminary results of a research about interoperability of the health policy in Spain, regarding to the central and regional levels of government. They share the competences of regulation and management of this policy sector. Also, this study will draw the evolution of the technical, semantic, and organizational interoperability dimensions, together with the governance system, with special attention to central and regional authorities’ relations. In so doing, we present the case of the Electronic Records of the National Health System, that it is one of the most developed projects in the field of interoperability in Spain. This analysis of this case study is devoted to shed light on the new challenges and opportunities for the application of a multi-level governance system fostering ICTs in the health policy in Spain.

Keywords

• Inter-governmental relations
• health
• clinical records
• case study