Closing the Gap between Standards Development and Implementation-Maturing the Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (C-CDA) and Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Standard

archived

When a computer system receives electronic health information from another system, it needs to be able to process the information without time-consuming human intervention. This can only occur if the sending system has used a consistent data format that is known to – and expected by – the receiving system. Given the vast number of systems that exchange electronic health information expecting each to negotiate agreed-upon exchange formats with all other systems with which it interacts is impractical. To address this issue, stakeholders in the health IT ecosystem have organized themselves under the auspices of standards development organizations (SDOs) to develop standardized data formats pertaining to specific purposes. These organizations include, but are not limited to: Health Level 7 International (HL7), the National Council for Prescription Drug Plans (NCPDP) and Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE). SDOs are primarily responsible for developing and maintaining the technical standards and any accompanying implementation specifications/profiles that provide additional implementation instructions to developers based on the particular purpose for which the standard is intended to be used.

High