A Practical Method of Reducing the Gaps in e-Government Interoperability Implementation: Case of Patient Referral Information Exchange

Abstract

In recent years, e-government interoperability frameworks (e-GIFs) and enterprise architectures (EAs) have been extensively developed as mechanism tools for achieving the interoperability. However, several researches indicate that only adopting both e-GIFs and EAs may not be inadequate. There have been numerous obstacles and barriers such as bureaucracy, compliances, capacity and enforcement that can produce the gaps in progress towards realizing the achievements of eGovernment interoperability. This paper defines two main existing gaps arisen between concepts and practices as well as among three dimensions (organizational, semantic and technical) of interoperability. The paper proposes a pragmatic approach to bridging them by adopting repository services, support tools and collaborative activities. The paper also illustrates an approach architecture, design methodology and system design based on UN/CEFACT standards. At last, it significantly describes how the approach can reduce the gaps with the application of patient referral information exchanges.