IT-Based Virtual Medical Centres and Structures

Today, medical infrastructures are subject to organisational change the world over. The reasons for this are manifold. On the one hand, it can be observed through scientific innovation and gaining of knowledge that a more in-depth specialisation is taking place, which means that medical healthcare providers are able to offer in-depth knowledge in narrowing fields. On the other hand, through increased process orientation of treatment pathways for patients, the necessity for superior organisational principles has been established. This effects that organisational cooperation models have to be found, which integrate singular specialised institutions into an organisational whole, which then employ integrative processes, information, and quality requirements. Such organisational structures can be set up in real structures by the spatial accumulation of scattered service units, so that centralised medical centres establish. Alternatively, organisational and technical integration may substitute the physical integration. The individual medical service units stay dislocated, but appear as a virtual medical centre or as specialised medical networks having a clearly defined profile. The management of the information technology in a virtual medical service centre is subject to different requirements than the IT-management of a hospital resembling more a closed shop. Building a virtual centre calls for performance of an open shop principle, because the entire treatment chain cannot be mapped within one single institution, but requires integrated cooperation in order to manage a patient’s clinical pathway. Not only the spatial displacement, but also the unavoidable higher process orientation within a virtual cooperation deserves particular consideration. Additionally, the information management is challenged by the fact that the provision of relevant information in standardised form is an indispensable element of a virtual centre. In this context, the question about potential structural assembling, and organisational principles and elements of virtual medical service centres has to be answered in order to conclude on the basic requirements of data management and the appropriate solution approaches. This shall be presented partly using the example of the virtual oncological medical centre in Tyrol.