Databases are not unique when it comes to creating challenges regarding the number of bytes that can be hosted or their content. Another area is eHealth. eHealth is an area where we can see many different systems being used. These include proprietary and bespoke systems alongside different standards focusing on many elements of healthcare provision. The central element for eHealth is clearly defined; it is the patient and the patient’s journal. This has its own challenge since usually, the focus for an archival transfer is the content. During this project, a specification has been developed based upon work performed in Norway for handling the transfer of deceased patient’s journals to the Norwegian Health Archive. The specification, in this case, does not go into which files are present; instead, it focuses on creating an information package with the patient-centric focus, which means the content is as it is just placed in the correct place. But considering the content with maybe numerous MRI scans and so on also, it needs to be possible to split the content into more than one information package to facilitate the transfer. A small hint – in this case, the splitting will follow the same rules defined for the databases.

Figure 5. Marisa Merino Hernandes illustrated the eHealth1 specification in the following way.

This eHealth specification will not be the only health specification, but it is the one focused on the patient. Another health specification that has been developed in the project relates to cancer registries and their transmission of information to different cancer information aggregators. For this specification, the focus has been on placing the content into the package with the addition of the extra information needed when you transfer the information for long-term preservation.