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Updated: 14 Nov 2009 |
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| CEN - Standards to support Innovation + Growth Source: CEN - European Committee for Standardization Standardization – an efficient tool to ensure the transfer of innovative products and technologies into marketable products and services. CEN: Christine Van Vlierden Session on policy matters |
US- Federal Register HHS Formally Recognizes Health IT Interoperability Standards Source: Governmental Health IT In the Jan. 21 Federal Register, HHS formally recognized three new interoperability standards related to electronic health records, personal health records and electronic quality monitoring, Government Health IT reports. Formal recognition of health IT standards is a two-step process in which Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel-established specifications are first accepted by the HHS secretary and then recognized a year later (Moore, Government Health IT , 1/22). The new health IT standards took effect Jan. 16 and are mandatory for all federal agencies implementing health care IT systems (Nagesh, Nextgov.com, 1/22). The new HHS-recognized standards are:
The Jan. 21 notice also contained some updates to interoperability standards for PHRs and biometric surveillance data that HHS recognized last year. John Halamka -- CIO of Harvard University's Medical School and chair of HITSP -- said HHS' action means that lack of uniformity among IT standards is no longer a barrier to nationwide EHR adoption. He said, "We recognize that if we want interoperable health care and want (President) Obama's vision of e-health records by 2015, we don't need islands of hardware and software; we need a coordinated health care system" (Nextgov.com, 1/22). | |
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| CCHIT To Expand Software Certification Programs in 2010, 2011 Source: “HDM - Health Data Management” News (www.healthdatamanagement.com ) The Certification Commission for Healthcare IT plans to launch 10 new software certification programs in 2010 and 2011, * Advanced interoperability; In 2011, CCHIT will start certifying applications for: * Eye care; In addition, CCHIT is considering launching a certification program for obstetrics/gynecology applications in 2012. |
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| California Healthcare Foundation - Request for Proposals: Using ELINCS to Deliver Lab Results 04 August 2008 CHCF will fund 20 implementations of the HL7-approved ELINCS specification. Successful projects will deliver lab results data to clinical information systems. Proposals are due August 28, 2008. (Application Process Closed). External Links |
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| CDISC Article : "EHRs, Medical Research, and the Tower of Babel" In: the "New England Journal of Medicine" (NEJM - http://content.nejm.org/ ) CDISC was recently invited to write an article specifically aimed at physicians. The article outlines the benefits that CDISC standards can bring to their work within a clinical study and is part of CDISC's ongoing commitment to enhance the link with healthcare. This article is now available to our readers. "..…two decades. Ten years ago, the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium ( CDISC ) began to develop standards for medical research data. In 2001, recognizing the large intersection between these two arenas, CDISC and HL7 began to harmonize their standards. Together, they have developed a structured…" Read Article |
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| AMA to HHS: Finish E-Script Standards Source: HospitalData Management The American Medical Association is calling on Congress to require the Department of Health and Human Services to complete all national technical standards to support electronic prescribing by the end of 2009. Further, if e-prescribing is mandated under Medicare or more broadly, the Chicago-based organization supports a two-year transition period after the standards are complete, during which physicians and pharmacies can use facsimiles to transmit prescriptions. But there's lots of leeway in the AMA's proposals, outlined May 9 during a forum on e-prescribing at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “Special attention also will be necessary for low-volume prescribers, small physician practices, and rural settings where financial, technical and operational challenges may require special exemptions or accommodations,” said Steven Stack, M.D., an AMA Trustee and chair of emergency medicine at St. Joseph Hospital East in Lexington, Ky.In April, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a final rule adopting three standards to support formulary and benefits, medication history and fill status notification components of e-prescribing. Now, the AMA wants quick action on three additional standards. “Prescribers should be able to efficiently transmit accurate and complete instructions for medications being prescribed, use standard medication terminology, and use real-time prior authorization,” Stack said. “So, it really is essential that these three incomplete standards be finalized and fully functional in order to realize the truly robust e-prescribing benefits sought by so many.” Further, the AMA called for elimination of federal Drug Enforcement Administration prohibitions on e-prescribing of controlled substances. The association estimates these substances account for 20% of all prescriptions. |
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| Industry agrees standardised interface for EPRs Source: eHEALTH Europe After one year of negotiations - faster than expected - more than 30 health IT companies have agreed on a new standardised interface for electronic patient records (EPR). The agreement will make it easier for EPR-solutions of different vendors to share personal medical data. The new interface was being developed under the umbrella of the intiative EPA NRW in the German federal state of North-Rhine Westfalia. Companies involved include, among others, Agfa Healthcare, Careon, CompuGroup, DocExpert, fliegel, IBM, ICW, Microsoft, Siemens and T-Systems. Like other federal countries, Germany is moving towards a system of regional eHealth networks of different providers with a high demand for interoperability. The basic concept is to have, next to each other, hospital-owned case records, life-long web-based personal health records (PHR), and regional server-based records for managed care-scenarios. All these electronic patient record solutions of different kinds will have to share data. This means that both a standardised interface and semantic standards are needed. |
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| Implementing the ELINCS Standard: Technical Experience from the Field Oct 2007 This issue brief details the results of the pilot implementations. The project helped to identify several important challenges in adopting the ELINCS standard, including the need to learn new coding schemes, the lack of a standard for message transport, and difficulty in resolving incompatible data fields. By the end of the project, four of the five pilot sites had successfully implemented ELINCS and were using it to transmit their lab test results. The feedback they provided helped to validate ELINCS v1.0 and to inform the minor changes incorporated into ELINCS v1.1 (released in October 2006). The complete issue brief is available under Document Downloads below. |
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| SNOMED-CT and Project E-vita TM Medical Records 29 Oct 2007 IntroductionProject E-vita TM utilises the power of SNOMED-CT for encoding information in it's Electronic medical / patient records. Using advanced techniques called AJAX gets the system to search the clinical terminology in the background while the physician refines their search in the foreground. Saving you time while coding. More information on ICD / Procedure coding can be found here What is SNOMED-CT? SNOMED Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) is a dynamic, scientifically validated clinical health care terminology and infrastructure that makes health care knowledge more usable and accessible. The SNOMED CT Core terminology provides a common language that enables a consistent way of capturing, sharing and aggregating health data across specialties, sites of care and International boundaries. The SNOMED CT Core terminology contains over 364.400 health care concepts with unique meanings organized into hierarchies. As of January 2005, the fully populated table with unique descriptions for each concept contains more than 984.000 descriptions . Approximately 1.45 million semantic relationships exist to enable reliability and consistency of data retrieval. In Project E-vita TM it is available in English and German language editions with the addition of the Spanish version due for 2006. (read more....) nova página c/ notícia completa SNOMED-CT is a result of extensive collaboration between two worldwide leaders in clinical terminology: SNOMED® International , a division of the College of American Pathologists (CAP), and the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS). Drawing on many years of combined research, development and health care leadership, SNOMED CT merges the content and structure of the CAP's SNOMED Reference Terminology® (SNOMED RT®) Version 1.0 with the NHS' Clinical Terms Version 3 (Read Codes). It builds on the experience of SNOMED users in over 40 countries. From May 2007 the Intellectual Property Rights for SNOMED-CT have been transferred to the IHTSDO , an international "Not for profit" governing body based in Denmark. Charts & GraphsA Project E-vita physician can record pathology results and observations encoded in SNOMED-CT directly against a patient's care record. These details can be retrieved for viewing on special Tabs of the Electronic Patient Record viewer, or displayed in Tables and charts. All graphs and charts can be exported as PDF files or Excel . Visit the page. |
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| The ISO-HL7 PHR International Survey Thursday, 18 October 2007 The ISO-HL7 PHR International Survey team invites to participate in a survey of the international uses of Personal Health Records and Personal Health Informatics. The goal of this survey is to inform and update the standards-development community of the current needs, desires, and trends surrounding the electronic Personal Health Record (PHR). Two international standards-development organizations (International Organization for Standardization - ISO and Health Level Seven - HL7 ) are collaborating on this survey in hopes of accommodating various business models, policies, and approaches - and fostering an environment that promotes interoperability and innovation worldwide. The survey should take between ten and fifteen minutes to complete - depending on the amount of supplemental, clarifying information you provide in the 'Other, Please Specify' fields. ISO-HL7 PHR International Survey web link http://fs7.formsite.com/Informatics/HL7ISOPHR/index.html The survey closes 31 October 2007 . Those who complete the survey will receive the tabulated results via email. The results of the survey will be used to update the HL7 PHR-System Functional Model. About HL7 |
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| House considers new agency to lead healthcare IT standards development By Diana Manos, Senior Editor WASHINGTON – In a bill that went relatively unnoticed, a House committee Sept. 26 considered changing the agency that oversees healthcare IT standards development. The oversight work first began in 2005 by President Bush's executive order. Meanwhile, the Administration has already announced it will spend $13 million in grant money to design a permanent private version of its healthcare IT advisory panel. “GE supports NIST's increased involvement – but not at the expense of processes that are already working well, such as the Health Information Technology Standards Panel [HITSP],” Raymer said. “HITSP represents a best practice in public/private collaboration. We should be wary of any action that would result in diminishing the effectiveness of this group.” Linda Kloss, CEO of the American Health Information Management Association said standards development has been slow because it has been mainly supported through volunteer efforts. She recommended that any changes made to the current standards process include financial support and staffing. “Achieving consensus on complex standards and an understanding of their uniform application is a monumental task even with a shared vision,” Kloss said. She said Gordon's bill could be used positively to sustain and accelerate the role that HITSP already plays. As of June, the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology under the Bush Administration had certified 90 electronic health record products with standards approved by HITSP, representing 40 percent of the ambulatory electronic health record vendors on today's market. To access Archives : http://www.hl7.org/listservice |
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| HL7 EHR - "Coming to Terms" White Paper 18 June 2007 The "Coming to Terms" white paper is now available on the HL7 EHR TC website. This includes the full publication package consisting of: 1) "Coming to Terms" white paper,2) Overview slide set, 3) Definition Source spreadsheet, and 4) List of terms. Here's the direct link to the pdf file (148Kb) |
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| Open Source - the Ignorance of Crowds Source: (CANARIE.ca) General Introduction (BSA) The Ignorance of Crowds |
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| SNOMED International transferred, renamed
Source: Healthcare IT EU News ( www.healthcareit.org ) & eHealth It (EC) The College of American Pathologists (CAP) is renaming its SNOMED International division. The division will now be called SNOMED Terminology Solutions and follows last week's announcement regarding the formation of the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO) that acquired the intellectual property rights of SNOMED Clinical Terms® (SNOMED CT®) and its antecedents from the CAP. SNOMED Terminology Solutions focuses on education, training and consulting related to SNOMED CT and its implementation. Education and training programs include live and Web teleconference education that detail SNOMED CT's content and structure. Consulting services include assistance implementing SNOMED CT into systems; mapping code sets to SNOMED CT; building and maintaining SNOMED CT subsets and extensions; modeling content (content development); validation; migration from earlier versions of SNOMED; and project-specific coding. " As global adoption of SNOMED CT continues to increase, the demand for its implementation into electronic health applications grows," said CAP President Thomas Sodeman, MD, FCAP. "SNOMED Terminology Solutions assists in terminology implementation as well as educating the marketplace about SNOMED CT's role in daily use of clinical terminology." In addition, SNOMED Terminology Solutions will own products not acquired by the IHTSDO including the SNOMED CT Subset Editor Kit, the SNOMED-Encoded CAP Cancer Checklists and CAP Cancer Protocols. It also will retain ownership of domain-specific subsets and cross mappings. "SNOMED Terminology Solutions will leverage CAP's more than 40 years of experience in the development of SNOMED to aid clients in meeting all of their healthcare terminology needs," said Kevin Donnelly, SNOMED vice president and general manager. "We are already working with clients around the world to provide terminology solutions to enable semantically interoperable electronic healthcare records." The IHTSDO is assuming responsibility for SNOMED CT's ongoing maintenance, development, quality assurance, and distribution. SNOMED International managed these functions in the past and CAP SNOMED Terminology Solutions will do so under a three-year contract with the IHTSDO. SNOMED CT is considered to be the most comprehensive, multilingual clinical healthcare terminology available in the world. When implemented in software applications, SNOMED CT represents clinically relevant information consistently, reliably and comprehensively as an integral part of producing electronic health records. |
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| SNOMED sold to new standards organisation 04 May 2007 The intellectual property rights of SNOMED Clinical Terms have been sold for $7.8m (£3.6m) to a newly-formed board called the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation, based in Denmark. The IHSTDO is made up of nine nations – Australia, Canada, Denmark, Lithuania, The Netherlands, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom with Connecting for Health acting as the host organisation for the UK's National Release Centre. The group is assuming responsibility for the maintenance, development, quality assurance, and distribution of SNOMED CT with former owners, the College of American Pathologists (CAP) continuing to support standards development organisation (SDO) operations under an initial three year contract. IHTSDO's management board chair, Professor Martin Severs, said: “We are delighted with the initial success of this truly international undertaking. Making SNOMED CT available this way is an example of how global health cooperation can benefit health systems, services, and products in the UK and around the world. “Most of all it is about better supporting the care of people – patients, clients and citizens – who can and should benefit from organisational and technological advances such as this.” CfH's UK National Release Centre for SNOMED CT will be known as the UK Terminology Centre and will be responsible for managing, distributing, supporting and controlling the use of SNOMED CT and related assets throughout the UK. It will provide an interface between all IHTSDO member release centres and any UK-based users interested in getting a SNOMED CT royalty-free licence to use the coding in their environments. "Connecting for Health" chief executive, Richard Granger, said: “It became very clear with the establishment of NHS Connecting for Health in England that legacy arrangements around clinical terminology with a bilateral and costly arrangement between the UK and the US were not sustainable or indeed desirable. “The establishment on a firm footing of a multinational initiative will help to ensure the standards used by the NHS in England, as we continue to roll out systems, will be compatible with those in other countries. This will benefit both patients who move between countries and also reduce the risk of England continuing to need jurisdiction-specific systems with significant concurrent costs.” SNOMED – the Systemised Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms – is considered to be the most comprehensive, multilingual clinical healthcare terminology in the world and can be use to represent clinically relevant information to help standardise electronic health records. CAP's president, Thomas Sodeman, said: “As the international adoption and use of SNOMED CT has grown, it has become apparent that an international governance structure that is open to the entire global healthcare community would be to everyone's benefit. The college is proud to have assisted in this important milestone.” CAP will continue to provide SNOMED-related products and services as a licensee of the terminology. Industry expert Tim Benson told EHI the acquisition would ‘change the landscape' of clinical terminology. |
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| New Software Method for Producing Medical Guidelines Source: EC-IST Results (Based on information from Protocure II ) Medical guidelines that lay down state-of-the-art rules for doctors are an important tool in modern medical practice. But though the number of guideline documents has proliferated in recent years, the quality, clarity and overall usefulness of the texts could be improved, resulting in even greater benefit to patients and medical practitioners. A team of European researchers working on the IST-funded Protocure II project set out to do just that, developing a method to make guidelines not only more accurate and useful to doctors, but also far easier for national healthcare authorities to generate and update. Most strikingly, they did it by looking at guidelines not as simple texts, but as modular software programs that can be written in a programming language. “In an earlier project, Protocure I in 2002, we analysed medical guidelines and determined that they can be written in a formal way using a programming language, then verified by computer to eliminate inconsistencies, repetitions and other flaws. In Protocure II we created the tools to translate the guidelines into a programming language, verify them and keep them up to date,” explains project coordinator Mar Marcos of the Universitat Jaume I in Spain. (more....) |
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| ELINCS: Developing a National Lab Data Standard for EHRs Source: California Healthcare Foundation ( www.chcf.org ) The adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) is a key step toward improving the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care delivery. Yet the vast majority of physician practices still rely on antiquated paper records. The purchase of EHR systems can be prohibitively expensive and technically daunting to physician practices that generally have little to no information technology resources. Equally important, the real and perceived benefits of EHRs to physician practices are still limited. Improving EHR features such as real-time access to lab results data would increase the incentive to adopt EHR technology. The EHR-Lab Interoperability and Connectivity Standards (ELINCS) project will develop a national standard for the delivery of real-time laboratory results from a lab's information system to an electronic health record. Typically this process can be a fractured one in which lab results are sent to the ordering doctor's office via fax or mail. The results must be filed in the patient's paper chart or manually entered into the physician's EHR. (more...) |
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| Open source and open standards in healthcare: Advantage Europe Source: HealthcareITNews.EU http://healthcareitnews.eu/ Europe has had a leading role in adopting and popularizing open source technologies. But open source and open standards are still rare sights in healthcare IT, both in Europe and in the United States. Why? Let's look at the status of these projects and address some of the barriers to implementation. The success of open source technology in recent years is undeniable. Many companies use servers with the Linux operating system to run applications, relational databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL have many followers in the commercial world, and companies generate hundreds of millions of dollars with services revenue associated with open source projects. (more….) |
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| US - HL7 to Adopt and Maintain ELINCS Lab Standard Source: California Health Care Foundation, News www.chcf.org IHE to test ELINCS in preparation for national interoperability showcase In a step forward for broader adoption of electronic health records, Health Level Seven (HL7) will begin a process to adopt and maintain the EHR-Lab Interoperability and Connectivity Specification (ELINCS), according to the California HealthCare Foundation, which funded ELINCS development. (read more...) |
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| EFMI 2005 -T300- Introduction into XML Standards Read the related PDF.Document |
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| SNOMED CT Helps Drive EHR Success Source: Journal of AHIMA – American Health Information Management Association Date: 2005 By: Kathy Giannangelo, RHIA, CCS, and Lyle Berkowitz, MD With the advent of electronic health record (EHR) systems, IT solutions are needed to ease the recording of standard codes for clinical encounters. The basis for these products is a standard terminology, without which the full benefits of an EHR are unlikely to be realized. One expert notes that a controlled vocabulary “supports collection of structured data within the provider's own environment and promotes standardization of terminology for external uses. Internally, the vocabulary aids data capture, enhances database management, and helps build a data warehouse for use in executive and clinical decision support.” 1 Recognizing a possible delay in EHR implementation due to the lack of a standard terminology, the US Department of Health and Human Services purchased a license for the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine, Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) in 2003, allowing all federal and private developers of EHR systems to freely incorporate the vocabulary system. The National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics then recommended that the federal government recognize a core set of patient medical record information terminologies as a national standard, one of which was SNOMED CT. 2 After review, SNOMED CT was adopted as a federal Consolidated Health Informatics standard. Nonetheless, use of SNOMED CT by providers is not yet a common practice. (read more...) |
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ISO Workshop to focus on the role
of standards promoting corporate social responsibility |
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New XML Standards New XML standards are being developed by standards committee
of the American Society for Testing and Materials - ASTM E31 (Standards
Committee on Health Informatics). |
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