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IHE Patient Care Coordination Announces Four Final Text Implementation Guides

For more information, contact
Celina Roth/IHE PCC Domain
(312) 915-9213/pcc@ihe.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
pdf version

 

Profiles supporting maternal care, public health, and transitions of care to be published in next edition of Technical Frameworks.

 

CHICAGO (October 13, 2011) – The Patient Care Coordination domain of IHE International today unanimously approved the advancement to final text status of four IHE profiles, implementation guides that enable health information technology (HIT) systems to produce and exchange medical information in standard formats.  The four include:

  • Antepartum Summary describes information an obstetrician/gynecologist must communicate to a labor and delivery center to ensure appropriate care for a delivering mother.  This profile was developed to support the widely used Antepartum Record forms developed by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) in an electronic format.
  • Immunization Content describes information necessary for an accurate record of a patient’s immunization history and plan.  This information can be provided to patients electronically to help them keep track of their immunizations.
  • ED Physician Note and Triage Note describe content care providers should communicate about an emergency department (ED) encounter.  The triage note covers the initial triage of the patient in the encounter, and the physician note covers the final report about the encounter.  These profiles support communication between ED providers and other healthcare professionals in both the inpatient and ambulatory settings who provide follow-up care after an emergency visit.

All four profiles are based on the HL7® Clinical Document Architecture (CDA®) Release 2.0 standard and use content from the HL7® Continuity of Care Document (CCD®) implementation guide. Many current electronic health record systems are able to produce, display and share CDA documents and they have been specified for use in many health information exchange initiatives in the US and internationally.

Before an IHE profile is moved to final text, it is thoroughly tested at face-to-face HIT testing events, called IHE Connectathons, by at least three different vendors, and commercial products compliant with the profile must be entered in the IHE Product Registry (http://product-registry.ihe.net). Final text status signals that profiles are mature enough for general adoption by the healthcare community.

“We are quite pleased to see that these profiles have passed the criteria to move to final text,” said Keith W. Boone, Standards Architect for GE Healthcare, and co-chair of the PCC Planning Committee. “The fact that they are being used in real-world implementations shows that healthcare organizations are using technology to produce meaningful improvements in the quality of care,”

You can find these and other profiles from the Patient Care Coordination Technical Committee at https://www.ihe.net/Technical_Framework/index.cfm#pcc.

 

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About IHE USA:
IHE USA (www.iheusa.org) is a not-for-profit organization established in 2010 that operates as a deployment committee of IHE International®. The mission of IHE USA is to drive adoption of standards-based interoperability to improve patient care through innovation, standards profiling, testing, education and collaboration. IHE USA improves the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery by supporting the deployment of standards-based electronic health record systems, facilitating the exchange of health information among care providers, both within the enterprise and across care settings, and enabling local, regional and nationwide health information networks in the United States, all in a manner consistent with participation in the activities of IHE International, Inc.

About IHE International:
IHE International, Inc. (www.ihe.net) is the global hub of the IHE initiative, a multi-stakeholder effort started in 1997 to promote the effective use of electronic health records and health information technology (HIT) by driving the adoption of standards-based solutions for interoperability. IHE International brings together HIT experts and stakeholders in more than a dozen clinical and operational domains to develop implementation guides call IHE Profiles that define the use of standards to address specific HIT interoperability needs. It also oversees a process of testing that fosters the adoption of IHE Profiles in real-world HIT products and care settings. IHE interoperability solutions are implemented in hundreds of products and in care sites around the world.