Initiated in 2008, epSOS has been a large-scale pilot on e-Health, co-funded by the European Commission Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP) within the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP). The goals of epSOS have been to improve the quality and safety of healthcare for citizens when travelling to another European country and on developing a practical e-Health framework and ICT infrastructure that enables secure access to patient health information among different European healthcare systems. The framework entails benefits for both patients and health professionals in seeking and offering health services.
epSOS was one of the analysed families of structured e-Document formats for the study "Analysis of structured e-Document formats used in Trans-European Systems", conducted in the context of Action 2.15 of the ISA Programme.
The epSOS project came to an end in June 2014. The project has achieved considerable results in a range of areas.
For instance, the main technical deliverables include the development of a solid basis for the pilot services, considering: governance, use cases, data content, semantics, specifications, architecture, testing mechanisms, etc. The main technical aspects are summarized in a project deliverable, and are also intended to be maintained as part of an evolving document.
Importantly, epSOS has taken the abovementioned results into concrete practice: 16 pilots of epSOS services achieved live operations during the project. Although there were fewer cases of real patients using the services than originally envisioned, the pilot operations constitute substantial progress.
Much of the rich experience from epSOS is captured in the project’s evaluation and recommendations, informing future endeavours in the area of cross-border eHealth services.