A distributed and interoperable system for out-of-hours health care

Abstract

In Italy, at nights and weekends, there is an out-of-hours service called the Continuity Healthcare Service (CHS) which provides for urgent, non-emergency health-care needs. The CHS manages the following typical requests: information on health-care services, support and assistance, prescriptions, various kinds of clinical advice, urgent care problems, general practitioners’ visits and suspected emergencies which require immediate evaluation. A distributed and interoperable system (DAISIES) was proposed to manage the entire CHS process for each health district, with particular emphasis on health assistance, medical support and urgent care problems. The DAISIES system is now being implemented in a health district in the northern part of Milan, with the implementation of a service call-centre and some first-aid stations. Experience to date shows that it is possible to implement a technology-based model for the organization and the management of an out-of-hours health service, with particular emphasis on health assistance, medical support and urgent care problems.