Sharing patient data
As a doctor you know how important it is - in the context of the continuity of care - to exchange health data of patients.
To share patient data, you must:
- give the patient his informed consent first;
- register with a hub that ensures a smooth and secure exchange of health data.
Hubs and meta hub
Thanks to the hubs and the metahub, you have real-time and secure access to your patient's medical records, giving you an overall picture of their health. The available data comes from healthcare institutions all over Belgium.
Hubs
A hub is a regional exchange network.
There are currently four hubs in Belgium where general practitioners and specialists can share health data electronically with each other in a secure manner. And this both in a hospital and in a private practice.
- Regional hubs in Flanders
- Collaborative Care Platform (CoZo), including the Antwerp Regional Hub (ARH)
- Flemish Hospital Network KU Leuven (VZN)
- Regional hub in Brussels
- Regional hub in Wallonia
What features are available in the hubs?
The number of features available to patients and physicians varies by hub.
meta hub
The federal platform eHealth is used as a metahub.
- It connects all networks so that healthcare providers can consult the available documents about a patient, regardless of where they are stored. As a result, as a doctor you only have to consult one hub to receive the information from all hubs.
- It manages security via a login with your eID card.
Why register with a hub?
Working electronically is only possible if work is done via a hub or metahub.
Registering with a hub offers many advantages:
- Registration is free and gives access - via the metahub - to information from the other hubs.
- You get, 24 hours a day, a general picture of the health of your patients.
- This improves the quality of care because you know your patient's medical history. You prevent useless or duplicate tests and prevent prescription of medicines that the patient is not allowed to take.
- This also ensures better cooperation and communication between all care providers who are responsible for the care.
- The hubs and metahub are fully integrated into your patient software. You only have to use one program, so more time savings and efficiency .
How to request data via a hub?
Only physicians with a therapeutic relationship with the patient can access the documents shared on a hub.
You can access it through your patient software or the hub or metahub platform.
Sumehr
Sumehr, also called summary health record, stands for SUMmarized Electronic Health Record.
A sumehr provides an up-to-date health picture of the patient and can be created by any doctor. Often, however, it is the GMD-holding general practitioner who does this for his patient. Each patient can ask his doctor to draw up a sumehr and determine the content together.
What is it?
A sumehr:
- is not a complete health file, but contains the most important data that are useful for medical follow-up;
- evolves with the patient's medical history;
- is a liaison document between the electronic medical records (EMR) of general practitioners and specialists: they can consult all or part of a sumehr according to the established access rules and provided they have a formal therapeutic relationship with the patient.
Most software packages already integrated the functionality to create, view and change a sumehr. The layout may differ per package.
The homologated medical software programs can produce (export) or integrate (import) electronic sheets with sumehr data in a standardized way.
If you have any questions about your software package, it is best to contact your software supplier .
Sumehr premium
As a general practitioner you can receive a Sumehr premium if you:
- are a recognized general practitioner;
- create a Sumehr for the premium year for a certain number of different patients.
This is a fixed allowance. The amount depends on the effective use of the e-tools. More information can be found on the website of the Riziv.
