%0 Journal Article
%T The use of regional platforms for managing electronic health records for the production of regional public health indicators in France
%A Marie-H¨¦l¨¨ne Metzger
%A Thierry Durand
%A St¨¦phane Lallich
%A Roger Salamon
%A Philippe Castets
%J BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1472-6947-12-28
%X Different tools being deployed in France allow us to consider the potential of these regional platforms for epidemiology and public health (implementation of a national health identification number and a national information system interoperability framework). The deployment of the Rh£¿ne-Alpes regional health platform began in the 2000s in France. By August 2011, 2.6 million patients were identified in this platform. A new development step is emerging because regional decision-makers need to measure healthcare efficiency. To pool heterogeneous information contained in various independent databases, the format, norm and content of the metadata have been defined. Two types of databases will be created according to the nature of the data processed, one for extracting structured data, and the second for extracting non-structured and de-identified free-text documents.Regional platforms for managing EHRs could constitute an important data source for epidemiological surveillance in the context of epidemic alerts, but also in monitoring a number of indicators of infectious and chronic diseases for which no data are yet available in France.France's Public Health Act of August 9, 2004 [1] introduced 100 health targets for the 5-year period from 2004 to 2008. This law is under evaluation, and new public health targets should be established shortly. The law has given impetus to an evaluation process of public health programs in France at the national and regional levels. Specific indicators for measuring and monitoring the results have been defined. The health problems that are the focus of these 100 targets are very diverse, covering the population's entire range of health conditions. Some targets deal with health determinants (alcohol, tobacco, physical activity, nutrition, etc.), infectious diseases, maternal and child health, cancer pathologies, cardiovascular diseases, etc. Certain targets also focus on evaluating the healthcare system itself (iatrogeny, antibiotic resista
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6947/12/28