Cloud-based data exchange framework for healthcare services

Healthcare is one of the most important basic foundations in every country including Thailand. Using information technology has recently been the trends in healthcare services worldwide. Even though there are many existing hospital information system (HIS) deployed in Thailand, there is no defined standard that aims at supporting a growing demand of information exchange. Currently, healthcare data cannot be shared and exchanged among different healthcare institutes effectively. Moreover, with the increasing in the amount of healthcare data, infrastructure that can handle data processing and storage is in need. Therefore, this paper proposes a framework for data exchange focusing on electronic health record (EHR). In addition, we utilize a cloud computing technology by designing the framework based on the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) concept. The framework is designed to be flexible and secured. Any registered software applications can access data exchange services conveniently. In this paper, the suitable EHR data model for healthcare in Thailand, the framework architecture, and the data exchange mechanism are described in details. The practicality of the framework is also verified by the local healthcare experts. We believe that the framework will enable the development of healthcare facility, not only at the level of specific sectors but also over the national level.