The sharing of patient information between health care organizations and IT systems is changing from a "point to point" model to a "many to many" one. The European Commission is supporting moves to facilitate cross-border interoperability of e-health systems and to remove potential legal hurdles, as in the project www.epsos.eu/. To allow for global shared workflow, studies will be locked when they are being read and then unlocked and updated once reading is complete. Radiologists will be able to serve multiple health care facilities and read and report across large geographical areas, thus balancing workloads. The biggest challenges will relate to interoperability and legal clarity. In some countries it is almost forbidden to practice teleradiology. The variety of languages spoken is a problem and multilingual reporting templates for all anatomical regions are not yet available. However, the market for e-health and teleradiology is evolving more rapidly than any laws or regulations.[106]
European Union: Directive 2011/24/EU on patients' rights in cross-border healthcare[edit]
The European Commission wants to boost the digital economy by enabling all Europeans to have access to online medical records anywhere in Europe by 2020. With the newly enacted Directive 2011/24/EU on patients' rights in cross-border healthcare due for implementation by 2013, it is inevitable that a centralised European health record system will become a reality even before 2020. However, the concept of a centralised supranational central server raises concern about storing electronic medical records in a central location. The privacy threat posed by a supranational network is a key concern. Cross-border and Interoperable electronic health record systems make confidential data more easily and rapidly accessible to a wider audience and increase the risk that personal data concerning health could be accidentally exposed or easily distributed to unauthorised parties by enabling greater access...