International standards: harmony or confusion?
Integrated healthcare in Europe is being threatened by EU member
countries independently creating their own ehealthcare standards, which
will prevent system interoperability. Ray Rogers reports on
some of the main changes in the standards-making field.
abstract
Many countries are pursuing similar strategic aims — eg, electronic
healthcare records, etransfer of prescriptions, hospital/primary care
communications, security (PKI), healthcare-professional and patient-data
cards. They recognise the need for national standards but many are
creating their own, despite obligations to use international standards
wherever possible. The reasons are many and the problem needs to be
tackled.
There have been many improvements. Relationships between
standards-development organisations in healthcare informatics that have an
international standing — CEN/TC251, ISO/TC215, HL7 Inc, IEEE and DICOM —
have strengthened both formally and informally. New rules in CEN and ISO
mean standards must be produced quickly or work dropped.
Much remains to be done. Better arrangements are necessary to bring
together suites of standards from the different developers and to prove
interoperability. IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) and the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) initiatives are a start.
The EU Commission is supporting a CEN/ISSS Focus Group on eHealth. Its
report will make recommendations on what to do about standards to support
electronic healthcare in Europe. To make a difference it needs commitment
from member states.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2004; 21(9): 15–17.
