Citizen Centric Architecture Approach - Taking e-health forward by integrating citizens and service providers

In this paper, two related research problems will be discussed in the development of e-health services: First, an architectural approach is needed to provide a holistic view for solving the ICT challenges in e-health development. Second, solving the needs of the citizens should be the focus of the architecture solution. To overcome these problems we suggest a Citizen Centric Architecture (CCA) approach for providing a holistic and appropriately balanced view of the integration. Naturally, enterprises' information systems and citizens' information systems are the key elements of CCA. In addition, for solving the topology challenge brought by a large number of involved parties, a role of trusted third party is proposed to provide an environment for the information exchange and service mediation among the various parties. We believe this approach will enable the large scale growth in citizen centric e-health services that is poorly facilitated by the prevailing models: the improved integration of information will attract more citizens and health care service providers, which in turn, improve the health care information and quality of service.