InteropEHRate aims to support electronic healthcare by opening up new ways and techniques for disposing and sharing health data. To make this possible, health data can be managed by the citizens themselves, and in particular through specific Smart EHR (S-EHR) mobile applications. The data will be transmitted through highly secure channels, including Bluetooth-based (Device-to-Device) communication, while allowing citizens to store their medical data locally on their devices, following the HTTP protocol (Remote-to-Device). InteropEHRate will develop open communication protocols that support the patient-centered exchange of health records among patients, healthcare providers and researchers. Thus, the project will contribute to the preparation of an open European format and to the general process of exchanging electronic health record data. InteropEHRate is funded by the European Union for 42 months and is implemented by a consortium of experienced institutions and specialized scientists. InteropEHRate participants represent healthcare solution providers, hospitals, universities and research centers, as well as European and local stakeholder associations.

Device-to-Device (D2D) protocol: The purpose of the D2D protocol is to offer a series of secure and encrypted messages about the exchange of information and medical data, between a health professional and a citizen, without the use of the Internet. This protocol is based on short-range wireless technologies, specifically Bluetooth, which will be adopted at a pan-European level, for the secure exchange of health records between a smart mobile device and a health system in the form of an online application. The smart device will use the S-EHR application (i.e., application that serves the purposes of D2D from the side of the citizen), while the health information system will use the HCP application (i.e., application that serves the purposes of D2D from the side of the healthcare professional).

Health Record index: The purpose of the Health Record index is to provide an intermediary service for informing healthcare practitioners about the location of the citizens’ cloud-stored medical data, without the data being provided directly to them. The latter will facilitate emergency cases where citizens are unable to give their consent towards third-parties accessing their health data (supposing that in the past such a consent has been already approved by the citizen for granting access to the stored data with pre-specified data access tokens).