Abstract

The advent and rapid proliferation of the internet has made information access and exchange more efficient and effective than it was before its invention. The internet permits data of various forms to be transmitted from entity to entity; this being an important feature of information age. The ability to take advantage of this technology to improve all aspects of human life and human endeavor is one of the keys to achieving sustainable growth and development for developing countries especially in terms of health care service delivery. The availability and accessibility of Health information whenever it is needed is important in determining the effectiveness of healthcare service delivery. This brings about the need for information exchange between different health information systems with reference to the Nigerian health sector i.e. an integrated system of interoperable health information systems that can exchange data in a meaningful and coherent way. The need for standardization is identified as major factor in achieving integration and interoperability between any groups of heterogeneous systems that must function together. This research work employed the review of related literature and existing health information exchange systems to determine the strengths and flaws of existing health information exchange systems and architectural models. How they can be adapted to and used to improve the Nigerian healthcare system was also a subject matter in this study. Based on the federated model of health information exchange; an architectural model and Framework was designed to demonstrate how interoperability can be achieved. Architectural models and Frameworks were designed to suit Nigeria’s unique healthcare structure while supporting the designed architectural models with the development of an API using the federated model of health information exchange. Data was transferred between health information systems in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format using the developed API. The study concluded that the development of health information exchange Standards that conform to existing health information exchange reference models by the collaboration of medical and Information technology bodies in Nigeria would allow for a nationally integrated and interoperable health care system.