Care information building blocks

Recording healthcare information unambiguously and once; that has advantages for everyone. Relevant care information can then be reused later in the care process and for different purposes. This reduces the registration burden, reduces errors and enables healthcare providers to make more use of each other's expertise. In addition, uniform registration means that less processing, such as cleaning the data, is needed to make the information suitable for quality registrations and scientific research. Thus, both patients and specialists benefit from the standardisation of healthcare information. That is why the government stimulates the registration and use of HCIM through the VIPP subsidy programme.

Health and Care Information Models (HCIM) form the basis for the standardisation of care information. HCIM were developed by the Registration at the Source programme and are now managed by Nictiz. HCIM define clinical concepts that are relevant to care, such as allergies, tobacco use or body weight. They are blocks of information with standardised agreements on what data should be included. The aim of HCIM is to make healthcare better, more accessible and more affordable.

VIPP is the Accelerated Programme for Information Exchange between Patients and Professionals. The VIPP5 subsidy programme stimulates the standardised exchange of medical data. Both between healthcare institutions and between healthcare institutions and patients. The latter is done via the patient's Personal Health Environment (PHE). Hospitals that meet the set standards and VIPP objectives can receive a subsidy.

At ConsultAssistent, we have been busy working with HCIM. We think it is important to relieve healthcare institutions by exchanging relevant information in accordance with HCIM. We will therefore use HCIM as much as possible in our auto-anamnesis, follow-up and PROM question modules to record the collected patient data. Using the HCIM, we can deliver data in a standardised manner to both healthcare institutions and patients via a PHE.

In implementing the HCIM, we have noticed that not all HCIM are yet suitable for our complex questionnaires with contextual auto anamnesis information. HCIM are information models of minimal clinical concepts. Whereas in ConsultAssistent, we collect data that paint the best possible picture of the complaints as experienced by the patient. For much of what we ask, there is no zib (yet).

We believe it is important to participate in the standardisation of information in the care process. Our aim is therefore to set up all the data we collect for which a HCIM which already exists. We also want to be able to read the information we receive from healthcare institutions in accordance with HCIM.

This means that more knowledge is shared, care providers are relieved of an administrative burden and fewer errors are made in the transfer of information. We can also deliver relevant medical data directly to the patient's PHE, giving patients more control over their own health. In short, an important step towards further improvement of the quality of care.