A framework for regional health information systems interoperability: The Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN) experience

In 2005, the World Health Organization defined eHealth as ‘the use of information and communications technologies for health’. Since then, countries have moved rapidly to digitise their health information systems. Soon, however, most governments who adopted digitisation began encountering challenges with interoperability hampering timely and accurate decision-making. The Asia eHealth Information Network was created by WHO in 2011 to form a group of peers collaborating to solve this interoperability problem. After 9 years of continuous knowledge exchange and resource sharing, AeHIN has arrived at a framework to guide countries in developing their national eHealth programme. This framework is the ‘Mind the GAPS’ approach. GAPS is an acronym representing the foundational importance of multisectoral governance (G) in setting the strategy and directions for eHealth development in the country. This governance structure then broadly promotes a shared enterprise architecture (A) with stakeholders who in turn adopt good programme management (P) practices to build their part of the blueprint. By implementing the standards (S) in the blueprint, stakeholders contribute to interoperability within a country and corollary, to the region.