This paper presents an overview of the Synapses Project, funded under the EU Health Telematics Framework IV Programme. Synapses sets out to solve problems of sharing data between autonomous information systems, by providing generic and open means to combine healthcare records or dossiers consistently, simply, comprehensibly and securely, whether the data passes within a single healthcare institution or between institutions. The approach to be taken in Synapses is to build as far as possible on existing results in both technology and standards. The fundamental enabling technologies for Synapses are open distributed computing, object orientation, browsing, information filtering, multimedia, security mediation and telecommunications. The project plans to bring them together, apply them to healthcare, and produce demonstrations validating the approach. The result will be in the public domain in the form of a set of specifications and guidelines.