What is Medical Home

The healthcare system in many countries is undergoing change, with the most important drivers behind this being: to improve the quality of the healthcare system, reduce the increase in costs and cope with a shortage of professional staff. These trends are influenced by the increase of chronic diseases across all ages and the aging society, due to longer life expectation. Trends within the changing healthcare system, the concept of a care cycle and the need for Health Information Exchange (HIE) are presented in the introduction. The role that HIE can play and the potential benefits for the stakeholders involved are presented, as well as some possible approaches to HIE and a description of the functionality of important components like electronic health record systems and personal health record systems. For optimal support to care givers and patients, access to data alone is not sufficient, but should be supplemented with advanced applications that can advise care professionals, support their working procedures and processes and support collaboration within multi-disciplinary care teams. The importance of interoperability is shown and followed by a vision of the future “Digital Health Community”, with two examples that are presented in detail, one from a patient’s point of view, the other from a care giver’s. The analysis section shows a list of potential building blocks which can be part of such a “Digital Health Community”.