Fruit of the long cooperation between RNP and Ebserh (Brazilian Company of Hospital Services), responsible for managing the country's federal university hospitals, the health data interoperability initiative received the HDI EXPOGOV “IT Initiative for the Citizen” award, as it was the public institution project that generated the most value to society through technology in the last year. 

The recognition took place at an event held in Brasília at the Royal Tulip Alvorada Theater, on 5/6, and, on the afternoon of 27/6, the director of Services and Solutions, Antônio Carlos Fernandes Nunes, the Solutions manager responsible for conducting the cooperation, Hélder Vitorino, and project analyst Diego de Oliveira were present at Ebserh headquarters to hand over the trophy to the respective president, Arthur Chioro. Also participating in the meeting on Ebserh's side were the director of Information Technology, Giliate Coelho, his Planning advisor, Cláudia Brandão, and the head of the Systems Development Service, Rodrigo Rezende.

“Started with the University Hospitals Management Network (RGHU), connecting Ebserh hospitals with quality, and evolving to offer new services, training, security and privacy consultancy, RNP's cooperation with Ebserh has been generating many fruits, and more recently also focused on interoperability and certification actions of the main hospital management system used as standard by more than 40 university hospitals in the Ebserh network - the Management System for University Hospitals (AGHU), which enabled the integration of millions of medical records, records of consultations and hospitalizations, and test results. This award recognizes and values ​​the work hours of all professionals and partners dedicated to the evolution of health education and training, as well as their direct impact on serving citizens", highlighted the director of RNP. 

The definition of the winning initiative had two phases: the first was the choice of the three finalists by the HDI BRASIL Selection Committee and the second was the voting (live) by public initiative managers and others present at the event. The case of cooperation between RNP and Ebserh competed with Digital Vehicle Transfer, from DETRAN-SP and the API Integrator from Prodesp (Data Processing Company of the State of São Paulo), with the winner being chosen with 58% of the votes.

For the president of Ebserh, the award shows that the path to facilitating access to data as complex as health data is the right one to follow, even if it is not the simplest one to take.

“It is the recognition of a commitment that it is worth integrating systems, advancing interoperability, it is worth making efforts to make data increasingly accessible to healthcare teams, regardless of where they are working, between our network hospitals, between university hospitals and other points of care in the network. This, which may apparently seem like a very simple thing to those who are not in the industry, has a very special meaning, because it is a great achievement in taking better care of people, having access to the best information and, therefore, making the best decisions, both from the day-to-day clinical point of view and from the management point of view. It is a fantastic and well-deserved advance for the Ebserh and RNP teams that are involved in this endeavor”, said Chioro.

About the initiative
RNP and Ebserh worked together to promote the sharing of health data from the AGHU System through interoperability, developing the Ebserh Health Data Network (REHDS) and the HU Digital platform. 

“Ebserh has been making an effort to integrate its hospitals, medical records, to arrive at a single patient record and also to integrate with the SUS, health centers and specialty outpatient clinics in states and municipalities. This award represents recognition of this step we took to reach this goal of a single medical record”, highlighted Giliate Cardoso.

Composed of buses and connectors, the technological solution uses the HL7 FHIR standard (Health Level 7 – Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) and was developed by the company Core Consultoria e Serviços Ltda and promotes standardization (semantic interoperability) and unification of the health information of patients served by the Ebserh Network in Electronic Patient Records (PEP) and longitudinal Electronic Health Records (RES).

This solution serves the largest public hospital network in Latin America, with around 25 million medical records, 10 million consultation records, 5 million exam results and 1 million hospitalization records, registered in 41 federal university hospitals present in 24 federative units.

What is the impact of this initiative on society or citizens?

Citizen: 
- Convenience in not needing to carry a physical folder with all your exams at each appointment. Its access is in digital format and can be used by professionals authorized by the patient or by the Network in cases of emergencies. 
- Saving time, avoiding scheduling and carrying out exams that have already been carried out due to not having access to previous results.
- Safety in emergency care, the team has access to records of allergies and drug interactions, even if the patient is unconscious or has previously been treated in another hospital unit.
- Cost savings, the patient will not need to purchase the same medicines again that had no effect in previous treatments.
- Greater assertiveness and agility for treatment - since the history of other services in other units can be accessed with all the therapies that worked and those that did not - focusing the patient's and doctor's efforts on more effective care.

Society:
- Agility during patient assessment, as the doctor has quick and unified access to historical health data, without needing to search through different tools.
- Reduction of queues and expenses, avoiding both duplication of exams and consultations and ineffective treatment appointments.
- Integration between hospital units from different administrative spheres in an organic way.

How could this initiative be applied to other public institutions?
The solution can be replicated in any health network, making it possible to interoperate data in a federated manner with hospital units from different spheres, maintaining data security rules without the need to change the local solution.

As an example, we cite the cooperation agreement between Ebserh and the City of Recife, which connected REHDS to the “Minha Saúde Conecta” platform, which made it possible to integrate the municipal network with the federal network, allowing the patient, when sent between units, to preserve all treatment history and exams automatically. 

Thus, currently, patients treated at SUS in the Municipality of Recife have access to their clinical data in a unified way, from basic care to specialized care at federal university hospitals and vice-versa.

Other networks can be federalized to the Ebserh network through a bus that can integrate hospital units nationally.

What is the innovative or disruptive characteristic of the initiative?
Innovation in healthcare means finding new ways of working, providing services or adopting technologies.

This was the first exponential health data interoperability project implemented in the largest public hospital network in Latin America - a technology until then limited to niches in the private sector or with a smaller scope - and allows the entry of other networks organically.

By sharing health data, securely and in compliance with legislation, accuracy in diagnosis and treatment was improved and the satisfaction of millions of users who receive care on the Network was increased.

About the cooperation between RNP and Ebserh
The cooperation began with a request from the Executive Secretariat of the MEC (SecEx/MEC) to the RNP, on April 15, 2013, to carry out a project that integrated the hospitals managed by Ebserh. From then on, a partnership was established that was consolidated over the years and went beyond connectivity services, also encompassing the implementation of solutions in other areas of technology, always seeking innovation and continuous improvement of hospital services in Brazil.