Large Scale Pilot  Selection Process 
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Selection Process for epSOS Pilot Site Candidates

An epSOS pilot is an example for the practical implementation of specific cross-border interoperability standards – a 'field testing' of the insights and solutions obtained in the scope of the epSOS project, concerning legal and security issues, technical dimensions as well as many other aspects.

Assessing and selecting pilot candidates was the main task of WP 4.1 ('Specification of test scenarios including site choice'). For this purpose, all functional and technical prerequisites and all otherwise relevant criteria had to be identified.

There are six different possible pilot scenarios, each representing one step in the trans-MS interaction or interchange in the course of patient mobility. Beneficiaries who wanted to propose a pilot testing site had to present their capacity in delivering one of the Use Cases (ePrescription/eDispensation or Patient Summary) under at least one of the following scenarios:

  • Scenario 1: Patient Summary - the pilot can send a request and receive a response
  • Scenario 2: Patient Summary - the pilot can receive a request and send a response
  • Scenario 3: ePrescription - the pilot can send prescription information
  • Scenario 4: ePrescription - the pilot can receive prescription information
  • Scenario 5: eDispensation - the pilot can send dispensed medication information
  • Scenario 6: eDispensation - the pilot can receive dispensed medication information

In the course of the application process, pilot candidates submitted information in two rounds, phase I and phase II.

Phase I

The intention to participate as an epSOS pilot candidate was expressed by completing the first application form, Application Form A. This form focussed on the maturity of already existing ePrescription or Patient Summary services and characteristics of the geographical areas in terms of patient flows or the involved healthcare professionals. In this stage, no technical dimensions were assessed. It rather acted as a declaration of the willingness to participate. 

The main characteristics covered by Application Form A were:

Phase 1: Data fields
Surveyed Characteristics Comments  
Owner or organisation responsible for the pilot In most cases the main owners are regions or municipalities.  
Type of service Patient Summary could be tested in three different health care services: emergency, urgent and planned care.  
Type of patients Patients in the epSOS pilots could be inpatients, outpatients or both.  
Type of demographic area Urban or rural depending on the population density.  
Type of foreign patients In addition to the typology of being in- or outpatients, patients can be classified according to the length of their stay in Country B. The three different types are incidental stays (holidays, business trips), longer stays (seasonal migration, students or foreign workers and company delegates) and commuting (regular cross-border flow).  
Type of health care professionals involved The majority of sites will participate with different types of professionals, including GPs, specialists, pharmacists and, occasionally, nurses.  
Characteristics of the patient flow in relation with the pilot geographical area The majority of sites are willing to interoperate in both directions, as sender (Country A) and receiver (Country B) of data.  
Qualitative description of pilots Gives insight into the technical characteristics of the existing ePrescription and Patient Summary services at the candidate sites.  

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Phase II

The methodological approach to fine-tuning the selection of pilot candidates included the following:

  • Designing of, and agreement on, an application form for gathering information (Application Form B)
  • Assigning pilot characteristics to the criteria
  • Analysing the information
  • Risk analysis of the pilot candidates with an assessment of the pilot site choice.

Application Form B acted as an instrument for assessing the pilot candidates' capacity of complying with the epSOS interoperability requirements, whether technical or otherwise. This form contained five blocks with declarations on site adaptation capabilities:

Five Blocks of Application Form B
Block 1 Organisational Issues
Block 2 Local architecture and data model issues
Block 3 Security and ID management issues
Block 4 Human resources and effort issues
Block 5 Evaluation issues

The goal of the fine-tuning process of the pilot candidates was twofold:

  1. To evaluate the relevance of the variance between the existing local ePrescription and Patient Summary systems and the mandatory epSOS specifications
  2. To assess the relevance of apparent variations and risks, whereby the time needed by the pilot candidates for the organizational and technical adaptation of the systems was also taken into consideration.

Ranking and Selection

Following this second stage, pilot candidates were then ranked on the basis of their compliance according to the following criteria:

  1. Quality of coverage of Use Case elements
  2. Availability of the implemented level of PS-compatible datasets as defined by epSOS
  3. Availability of implemented eP-compatible datasets as defined by epSOS
  4. Capability of serving PS- or eP-compatible datasets in accordance with epSOS technical requirements (including architecture, semantic, ID management and security issues)
  5. Pilot implementation at site is achievable within a given timeframe
  6. Evaluation pay-off of epSOS services (prospect of frequent patient and HCP-contact)
  7. Economic status for implementation and evaluation

The ranking was then presented to the Project Steering Board (PSB), which made the final decision on the pilot selection. In March 2010, all 30 Pilot Site Candidates were accepted as potential participating pilot sites.

Back to the epSOS Large Scale Pilot Introduction.

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