  There is a compelling demand for the integration and exploitation of
heterogeneous biomedical information for improved clinical practice, medical
research, and personalised healthcare across the EU. The Health-e-Child project
aims at developing an integrated healthcare platform for European Paediatrics,
providing seamless integration of traditional and emerging sources of
biomedical information. The long-term goal of the project is to provide
uninhibited access to universal biomedical knowledge repositories for
personalised and preventive healthcare, large-scale information-based
biomedical research and training, and informed policy making. The project focus
will be on individualised disease prevention, screening, early diagnosis,
therapy and follow-up of paediatric heart diseases, inflammatory diseases, and
brain tumours. The project will build a Grid-enabled European network of
leading clinical centres that will share and annotate biomedical data, validate
systems clinically, and diffuse clinical excellence across Europe by setting up
new technologies, clinical workflows, and standards. This paper outlines the
design approach being adopted in Health-e-Child to enable the delivery of an
integrated biomedical information platform.
