Introduction

Government agencies, healthcare organizations, and the public urgently need a shared information system to

• Enable healthcare service personnel to obtain necessary information anytime, anywhere, improving healthcare service quality
• Allow public healthcare personnel to master public health information to prevent and control illness and promote health management
• Enable the public to access comprehensive personal health information, participate in health management, and enjoy sustainable, cross-region, and cross-organization healthcare services
• Provide healthcare organization management personnel with real-time resource data and enable them to analyze and utilize the data to attain scientific management and efficient decision-making

A shared information system will help control unreasonable healthcare cost increases, reduce healthcare errors, and improve healthcare service quality.

In the view of these requirements, a Regional Healthcare Information Network (RHIN) combined with Electronic Health Records (EHRs) must be established. The RHIN consolidates one individual's healthcare information, stored in different healthcare organizations, into a logically comprehensive whole. This is an innovative healthcare informatization construction mode.

Since 2000, some developed countries, such as Canada, the United States, and Britain, have positioned this innovative mode as a strategic development trend for healthcare informatization. Proved by the numerous practices of developed countries with various healthcare mechanisms and market environments, healthcare information sharing improves healthcare service efficiency and quality, ensures quick response to service requests, and reduces healthcare costs and risks. The construct of an RHIN has grown into a healthcare informatization development megatrend.

In September 2012, the Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China issued a strategic plan named "Healthy China 2020". According to this plan, by 2020, China will have established a relatively comprehensive basic healthcare system, covering both urban and rural residents, to provide healthcare access for every resident, utilize healthcare resources, and greatly improve the population's health. Additionally, China's central government is committed to setting up resident EHRs and regulating EHR usage and management. The EHR contains all health information of an individual throughout their lifetime. The twelfth five-year plan of healthcare informatization specifies the China's informatization construction roadmap, called "3521 Project" This project plans to build a three-layer RHIN (central government, provincial, and municipal), strengthen five services (public health, medical services, new rural cooperative, essential drug system, and integrated management), and two basic databases (EHR and Electronic Medical Record [EMR]), and one dedicated healthcare network.

Requirements and Challenges

China has a large population and covers a vast territory with 34 provinces (more than 300 cities and 2800 counties). The planning, project implementation, and service operating capabilities of health bureaus vary with different provinces. National resident EHRs can be fully functional only when a large number of grassroots organizations are capable of building and managing RHINs.

First, hardware infrastructure must be carefully selected, integrated, and optimized to prevent the RHIN from network attacks and secure sensitive information such as resident EHRs.

Then, the RHIN must release local healthcare data regulations based on national service regulations, with regional characteristics.

Finally, the RHIN construct raises the challenge of how regional health bureaus would effectively operate the RHIN and attain sustainable development.

China's RHIN construct provides references for some developing countries to establish resident EHRs in a complex construction environment.

Huawei Solution

Huawei's RHIN solution covers three parts:

• Integrated RHIN system to prevent high infrastructure construction risks
• RHINs that are independent from applications to ensure high platform performance and prevent major system faults
• Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for the resident EHR system to operate heath record data and promote healthcare information industries development

Figure 1-1 shows the architecture of an RHIN.

Figure 1-1 RHIN architecture

Huawei's RHIN solution has the following features:

• Integrated RHIN system

One-stop hardware delivery within three days




Anti-attack and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for sensitive EHR data




Cloud-based technologies to support flexible service expansion, and resource reuse based on the time (day and night)



• RHINs that are independent from applications

Construct of resident EHRs and EHR data models




Cross-organization healthcare information sharing to set up EHRs



• Open EHR information industry chain

Open application and development interfaces to Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and three-step industry development from the traditional regional healthcare field, mobile healthcare field, and to pan healthcare field (such as drugs, insurance, and health management)

RHINs isolated from applications to facilitate the construct of RHINs, accelerate the development of regional healthcare applications, maximize healthcare information benefits, and form a regional healthcare industry environment