epSOS aims at building and evaluating a service infrastructure demonstrating cross-border interoperability between Electronic Health Record Systems in Europe. Sometimes called a large-scale European implementation, epSOS is driven forward by many European member states, the first European eHealth project gathering such a large number of countries in practical cooperation. Learn more at www.epsos.eu

IHE-Europe plays a unique role as an epSOS participant representing 31 industrial partners. The infrastructure and tools used for the IHE-Europe Connectathon testing process have been selected as the foundation for testing among the epSOS partners. IHE-Europe supports epSOS in organizing a “Connectathon for this Project”, hence epSOS “Projectathon” that was first held in November, 2010 and will be a parallel event during the annual European Connectathon in Pisa, Italy. www.connecathon2011.org

The epSOS initiative is seen as a ‘gate-opener' to advance interoperability across all Member States by moving beyond a focus that until recently was limited to regional or national health networks. This Commission-driven initiative to promote the emergence of a European health information network backbone linking countries is already having significant impact among Member States, as well as defining more consistent business opportunities.