Web services

Consider the scenario of a patient, whom as a result of a medical condition is required to visit a number of healthcare providers and institutions in order to manage his medical issues as they arise. This includes visits to his general practitioner (GP) for regular checkups, a pharmacist for managing medications, a pathologist to take blood tests, a community nurse that will make home visits when necessary, and occasionally when the patient becomes really unwell, to see the doctor at the local hospital for urgent clinical care. Obviously there would be a large amount of health information that is generated and recorded about the patient during each encounter with the various healthcare providers. It would be very important for these providers to share this information amongst each other in order to achieve the best possible healthcare outcomes for the patient. Unfortunately, these providers normally maintain their own electronic healthcare records which are not shared outside their own practices or institutions. In addition, the telephone is the predominant means of communication between these providers or institutions when exchanging health information or making any arrangements (eg. schedule visits, arrange to take blood tests) relating to the management of the patient.