eHealth Service Platform Study

An interoperability platform and a dedicated agency for eHealth services in Luxembourg

This report describes opportunities to implement an interoperability platform for electronic health services in Luxembourg. It also provides recommendations for this platform as well as for related preliminary decisions to be taken such as the setup of a dedicated agency.

As the Ministry of Health of Luxembourg aimed to define the optimal way to move forward in the national eHealth programme, PwC has been requested to conduct a study on the costs and benefits of an interoperability platform for Luxembourg. This study hence comprises a comparative analysis of eHealth services in other countries and transposes the results – where applicable – to the Luxembourg healthcare context.

Healthcare is globally impacted by a combination of powerful trends:

The demographic shift towards an ageing population;
A rise of chronic diseases;
An increasing demand for quality healthcare services; and
Difficulty to control expenditures and to assign incentives in a fair way.

Consequently, healthcare cost is continuously rising. If ignored, these trends will overwhelm health systems, creating massive financial burdens for countries, with significant impact on individuals. As Luxembourg cannot withdraw from these trends and is seeking sustainable solutions, interoperability between healthcare information management systems comes into focus.

With lessons learned provided by other countries, the study outlines a roadmap with workstreams, a dedicated agency, and an interoperability platform with its services as building blocks of Luxembourg’s future eHealth programme. Building an interoperability platform and a specific agency for its management needs dedicated funding. For the years 2011 to 2015, the roadmap thus leads to funding needs ranging from 22,6 M€ to 37,2 M€. Benefits however exceed the costs but it takes time and they are difficult to measure.

With regard to the next steps, the study recommends to

Create a dedicated empowered Agency;
Engage with stakeholders;
Define, setup and stick to governance rules;
Decide on interoperability platform architecture and sourcing;
Setup workstreams and define services;
Promote interoperability;
Ensure flawless interoperability platform reputation;
Measure progress.

The results of the study are also of particular interest in the context of the discussions concerning the draft law regarding the reform of the Luxembourg Healthcare Sector of July 2010 (Avant projet de loi portant réforme du système des soins de santé et modifiant le Code de la sécurité sociale et la loi modifiée du 28 août 1998 sur les établissements hospitaliers)