Three standard types needed for e-health

A sub-group of the European Standardisation Organisations alliance has published a paper warning of gaps and overlaps in existing e-health standards.

The group, known as eHealth-INTEROP, says three types of standard need to be focused on to enable the achievement of interoperability in e-health – base standards, profiles and interoperability specifications.

The document, published as a draft response to the European Commission’s new recommendation on interoperability, aims to provide a consistent set of e-health interoperability standards.

As part of the aim to develop e-health interoperability the European Commission issued a mandate to the European Standardisation Organizations (ESO): CEN, CENELEC, and ETSI, to develop a coordinated work programme for standardisation in health informatics.

The e-Health INTEROP group was formed in March this year to collaborate on the preparation of the work programme, and have now published a draft response on their website, for the public to comment on.

In the report, the group identifies existing barriers in interoperability standards, and details their impact on e-health interoperability.

“Despite implementers’ and users’ expectations a standard fails to address all the aspects necessary for implementation – so a ‘local’ solution is produced, leading to a lack of interoperability… implementations of the same combination of standards with different approaches to linking them results is incompatibilities and non-interoperability,” it says.

The project will have two phases. Currently, it is in phase 1, a team of appointed experts reporting to the ESO will examine the portfolios of existing standards from the many different organisations in the sector, including international formal bodies and industry standards consortia.

The final response will take into account all their findings. This is expected to be completed in September this year, with the second phase due to begin in 2009 and 2010, where execution of the work programme will begin.

The report says the number of standards available should be reduced to three different types across Europe.

“Three classes of standardised products should be distinguished and recognised to enable interoperability in e-health – base standards, profiles (recognised at the European level) and interoperability specifications (recognised at a regional or national e-health project level).”

By using these three sorts of standards, existing barriers could be overcome across Europe, it argues.

“Unintended optionality results in variability of implementation to the extent that interoperability is lost… development of perfect standards is a long and near-impossible process, imposing delays in delivery and/or unforeseen implementation problems.”

The 58-page document outlines a plan of action to present to the EC on how to achieve standardisation in e-health across the community. The document is currently only in draft format, and is open to public consultation.

A full report will then be published for discussion, and is scheduled to be launched at an open meeting, to be held on 7 November in Copenhagen before being sent back to the EC.

Link

The document can be viewed and commented on here.