Special issue: Infrastructures to support integrated care: connecting across institutional and professional boundaries: Inter-organisational communication networks in healthcare: centralised versus decentralised approaches

摘要

BackgroundTo afford efficient and high quality care, healthcare providers increasingly need to exchange patient data. The existence of a communication network amongst care providers will help them to exchange patient data more efficiently. Information and communication technology (ICT) has much potential to facilitate the development of such a communication network. Moreover, in order to offer integrated care interoperability of healthcare organizations based upon the exchanged data is of crucial importance. However, complications around such a development are beyond technical impediments.