Integration and communication for the continuity of cardiac care (I4C)

The project I4C (Integration and Communication for the Continuity of Cardiac Care) is carried out for the advancement of cardiac care, from prevention to follow-up. The goals of I4C are: (1) integrated access to patient data, wherever they are stored; (2) support of evidence-based care; (3) consistent recording of patient data (eg, patient history, electrocardiograms [ECGs] or cine-angios) in a multimedia patient record; and (4) a documented reference data set for research. In several clinics, workstations are being installed to serve the four goals. Integration with other information systems in clinical care is realized by encapsulation. A computer-based patient record (ORCA) has been developed to support the collection, consultation, and sharing of patient data. In I4C, ORCA is intended for use in a research setting as well as routine patient care. The functionality of ORCA covers the collection of patient history data in a highly structured manner, the recording of drug prescriptions, an overview of laboratory test results, and viewers for ECGs and angiographic images. At present, structured data entry and consultation is supported in six European languages.