Converging Patient Summaries: Finding the Common Denominator between the European Patient Summary and the US-Based Continuity of Care Document

Having the administrative and clinical information concerning the patient presented in a comprehensible format, language, and terminology is valuable for any healthcare provider. In Europe, this type of information is represented by the Patient Summary Guideline and on the other side of the Atlantic by the Continuity of Care Document (CCD). Trillium Bridge is a project co-funded by the European Commission that "compares specifications of EU and US patient summaries with the aim of developing and testing common and consistent specifications and systems enabling interoperability of electronic health records across the Atlantic." The objective of this article is to summarize the findings of the comparison between these two Patient Summaries. Both documents are using the same syntax, namely Clinical Document Architecture (CDA), making the comparison easier.