RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG will link all of its facilities, currently numbering 46, using a web-based electronic health record. The goal of this system is to assist in enhancing the quality of care delivered to the more than one million patients seen annually by the Group. With Soarian Integrated Care (Soarian IC), Siemens will provide the software for the WebEPA. With the WebEPA – one of the biggest eHealth projects on the European healthcare market – both partners underscore their pioneering role in patient-centered healthcare delivery across all sectors of the healthcare continuum.

The WebEPA is a jointly developed electronic platform for data exchange between healthcare facilities throughout Germany. It enables communication between the different clinical systems like documentation, hospital information, picture archiving as well as practice management systems in a total of 46 hospitals and the associated medical care centers of the RHÖN-KLINIKUM Group. “The objective is to offer interoperability across sectors and providers,” says Dietmar Pawlik (right picture in the front), board member of the RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG.

With the patient’s consent, it will be possible for information such as admissions, discharge letters, and findings to be exchanged between clinicians involved in that patient’s treatment. The rollout of the WebEPA throughout the Group comes after its successful testing in a pilot project at Herzzentrum Leipzig (University Hospital) and Parkkrankenhaus Leipzig-Südost – both facilities of RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG (picture left). Additionally, the implementation of WebEPA to outpatient areas, including community-based physicians, is planned following the completion of the roll-out at the RHÖN-KLINIKUM Group.

The software components of the WebEPA, developed by Siemens and based on Soarian IC, include reports, images and medical data, a module for consultations among physicians, as well as what is referred to as a master patient index (MPI) allowing clear identification of patients beyond a facility’s boundaries.