Integrating Private Medical Data into Catalan Electronic Health Records: New FHIR/HL7 Platform Deployed

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The Department of Health in Catalonia has formalized a contract for an interoperability platform designed to integrate medical images from private centers into the electronic health records of Catalan citizens. The primary goal is to guarantee access, integration, and reuse of diagnostic medical images generated across different levels of care, regardless of whether they originate from the public system (Siscat) or external sources. The new solution will integrate with existing corporate systems such as Simdact, HC3, and La Meva Salut, while also being compatible with open standards including Dicom, HL7, and FHIR. This project is part of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan (PRTR) and has a bidding budget of 1.4 million euros. A key feature is the ability to consult, share, download, and manage diagnostic medical images with external healthcare entities and citizens. Crucially, it facilitates uploading studies from non-integrated centers into the patient's record, provided the patient consents. This allows individuals covered by private mutual insurance to upload their images via La Meva Salut, thereby maintaining their historical records even if they were not generated within the public system. This initiative aligns with the Digital Transformation Plan in Primary Care and supports interoperability with other national and European health systems, consistent with EU Directive 2011/24/EU on cross-border healthcare. The project is funded by Next Generation EU funds under the PRTR, marking a significant step toward a more integrated, sustainable, and citizen-centric healthcare system.