A Narrative Review of the Frameworks, Challenges, and Applications of Interoperability in E-Health

Integrated Health Information Systems (HIS) are necessary to achieve national and international goals in health and development, which are facing cooperation problems due to diversity and heterogeneity. Interoperability as a key characteristic of data sharing and the main prerequisite of integration enables healthcare providers to make timely decisions for diagnosis, treatment, action, and patient care. Therefore, this research aimed to provide a category of interoperability concepts in electronic health (E-Health).

This research is a narrative review to categorize the interoperability concepts in E-Health. For this purpose, Scopus, Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, and IEEE databases were searched using the keywords "Interoperability framework" and "Integration" with the combination of AND along with "E-Health". Therefore, all the articles referring to the concepts of interoperability were selected.

The result of the search in the aforementioned databases was 304 articles. By removing duplicate, out-of-reach, and unrelated articles, only 40 articles were examined, and topics related to the concepts of interoperability were classified based on six axes (dimensions, levels, obstacles, integration, architecture, and measurement). Finally, its applications and challenges were described in a narrative review.

Due to the nature of the health system, integrity and intelligence are very important in this area. Therefore, to facilitate the exchange of information and the use of health information systems from each other’s services, paying attention to the presented classification has an undeniable effect, and also, an important role in the integrity and intelligence of the environment, and increases the efficiency and effectiveness in the quality of providing health care services.