2. Healthcare and e-Health systems: The road so far
Health telematics had becoming a great topic in terms of medical
informatics and healthcare. Currently, hospitals and health
systems are relying on information and communication technology
(ICT) as a mean for improving quality, safety, and productivity of
health care services. E-Health connects medical informatics, public
health, and business through associated technologies, such as the
Internet. However, it has been suffered from a slow start due to
the low priority given by Hospitals and health systems to ICT in
the 90s. Nonetheless, the need to produce a standard for hospital
information systems was crucial. In 1987, the International
Health Level Seven (HL7) organization [7] was founded and, in
1994, it was accredited by the American National Standards
Institute (ANSI). Its name is a reference to the seventh layer of
the ISO Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Reference model also
known as the application layer. Currently, the HL7 is adopted by
ISO as a reference in terms of international standardization, publishing
together several frameworks and related standards for