In April 2006, the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) granted Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) liaison D status to make standards-based IHE profiles a formal part of the ISO balloting process and ISO deliverables. This status will makes global standards more accessible for the EHR.
In September 2006, ISO members unanimously approved the development of two ISO Technical Reports, one addressing the IHE Standards Adoption Process and a second one providing ISO reference to Integration Profiles supporting information communication for a range of specific use cases of broad international interest.
The use cases addressed by IHE currently cover radiology, cardiology, laboratory, radiation oncology, patient care coordination, patient care devices, eye care and IT infrastructure in an enterprise as well as cross-enterprise sharing of health information in community or national health information networks.
As noted in the ISO registry document for IHE liaison D status: “The EHR provides essential care information to providers at point of care through information and telecommunications technologies. This includes a broad spectrum of capabilities including acquisition, storage, presentation, and management of patient information (represented in different digital forms such as video, audio, or data), and communication of this information between care facilities with the use of communications links. Recent development of regional health information organizations (RHIOs) where the patients’ EHRs are stored and distributed securely whenever necessary (sharing EHR information at point of care), requires a robust registry system to be able to manage the EHR data effectively.”
Contact Audrey Dickerson, adickerson@himss.org, ISO TC 215 Secretary, to learn more about this process.
ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world’s largest developer of standards, a network of the national standards institutes of 157 countries. With a Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, ISO is a non-governmental organization that coordinates the system. More information is available athttp://www.iso.org/iso/en/aboutiso/introduction/index.html.
IHE is an initiative by healthcare professionals and industry to improve the way computer systems in healthcare share information. IHE promotes the coordinated use of established standards such as DICOM and HL7 to address specific clinical needs in support of optimal patient care. Systems developed in accordance with IHE communicate with one another better, are easier to implement, and enable care providers to use information more effectively. More information is available at https://www.ihe.net.