HYGEIAnet: the integrated regional health information network of Crete.

The healthcare environment is currently changing and the health sector is being transformed to meet new challenges and to benefit from new opportunities. Priorities for the 21st century ought to be set based on emerging dominant trends in healthcare, including the shift towards shared or integrated care, in which an individual's healthcare is the responsibility of a team of professionals across all levels of the healthcare system hierarchy. In addition to the requirement for efficient and secure access to the Integrated Electronic Health Record (I-EHR) of a citizen, this necessitates the development and deployment of Regional Health Information Networks (RHINs), synchronous and asynchronous collaboration services, and novel eHealth and mHealth services, facilitated by intelligent sensors, monitoring devices, hand-held or wearable technologies, the Internet and wireless broadband communications. These further require the adoption of an open Reference Architecture and the creation of a scalable Health Information Infrastructure (HII).This paper discusses the challenges encountered in developing and deploying HYGEIAnet, the Regional Health Information Network of Crete, as well as relevant benefits for citizens and health professionals. Furthermore, HYGEIAnet systems and services are presented, with emphasis on the development of the HII and the implementation of the I-EHR service for providing secure, role-based access to validated content by authorized and authenticated users.