GP Connector – a Tool to Enable Access for General Practitioners to a Standards-Based Personal and Electronic Health Record in the Rhine-Neckar Region

Electronic health records (EHR) as well as personal health records (PHR) are in widespread use today. Since several years the University Hospital Heidelberg is implementing a so-called personal and electronic health record (PEHR). The joint approach is standards-based and includes several needed services. However a remained unresolved issue is how to connect general practitioners (GP) and their systems to the record. This work describes a tool called GP Connector that provides access for GPs to the PEHR within the law. GPs can profit from all advantages of the PEHR usage. Only adding documents to the record comfortably through standards-based interfaces remains still open. Thus, deep integration of the PEHR into primary systems is preferable anytime. Yet the continuous trend towards multi-institutional health network may also pave the way for standards-based interfaces also in the field of practice management systems.