Healthcare Information and Communication Standards Framework

Abstract

Standardization in healthcare is a rapidly growing field. To prevent proliferation in standardisation, good coordination in both the development and usage of standards is necessary. In this chapter we propose a framework to analyse the fit between the proposed purpose of the standard and the perceived needs of the applications using the standard. An available standard can be characterised by the level of acceptance, the application area, the object of standardisation and the kind of user a standard is aimed at. The same aspects can be determined for the kind of standards needed for a specific application of information interchange. In a practical sense this will help in determining which standards to use. Also, it may provide a better perception of the supply and demand of healthcare information and communication standards in general.