Skip to main content

Standards - Case and Types

The purpose of the post is to reinforce the need for standards and help classify standards

Case for Standards

The idea that Healthcare continuum (using information systems) extends not just across the departments in a healthcare enterprise, but across healthcare enterprises in different care settings (necessitating information exchange) has accelerated the adoption of standards. The other fact that the best of breed systems for different departments are now the preferred option to a single monolithic system for a single enterprise (requiring information and data exchange within the organisation to function as single entity) has again brought the notion of standards to the forefront. Even for organisations which have single enterprise wide system, healthcare standards are relevant as they need to standardise the entry and capture of healthcare data.

In summary standards are needed for representing and exchanging information to

  • Not compromise the safety of patients by preventing exchange of incorrect, insufficient and not understandable information , e.g. allergies , adverse reactions
  • Provide access to data for patients from different providers in uniform fashion
  • Allow aggregation of data for performance measurements and monitoring
  • Provide access in disparate systems for a longitudinal view of the patients medical history
  • Lower IT support costs by reducing need for data cleansing and data quality

Types of Standards

In general the implementation of standards fall in the following areas of categories

Voluntary Standards: These standards are usually developed in voluntary consensus by industry bodies or market groups associated with the industry. As these standards are developed by industry or someone associated with industry the standards are usually well regarded. The voluntary nature of standards will allow the implementers of standards to innovate on the base standards.

However the voluntary natures of standards ensure no enforcement mechanism, ambiguous interpretation and absence of mechanism for conflict resolution.

E.g. HL7V2.x standards developed by HL7 Inc which is a voluntary organisation

Regulatory Standards: These standards are usually legally binding contracts, laws or authority enforced regulations. Everyone must adhere to these standards and non-compliance is recognisable. There usually will be regulatory who ensure the compliance and assess the compliance.

However the regulatory standards encourage no innovation and sometimes do not cover all possible situations. Any conflicts on interpretation lead to long legal wrangles and the need for compliance assessment and inspection leads to large regulatory inspection teams

E.g. Usage of READ standards in UK NHS primary health care

Implementation and Conceptual Standards: Implementation standards are those have are dominant and wide usage and reinforce existing patterns. Conceptual standards are those which are developed to bring in new ways of thinking and working in the industry

E.g. Usage of XML, SOAP-WS

Product Standards: There are some standards which prescribe and recommend products or services. This can lead to better design of existing products and services or future products and services. This lead to a consistent and uniform feel to users of different products across the industry.

E.g. standards recommending common CUI (Clinical user interface)

Process Standards: A process is usually defined as a series of activities and logic that form a repeatable pattern. Process standards are those that focus on bringing efficiencies to the industry by developing repeatable processes.

E.g. Standard pathways for treating patients based on NICE guidelines

PS: Thanks to a friend who kept asking me for my next blog post and helping me revive my interest

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Create Your Own Social Networking Site

Create Your Own Social Networking Site JCOW: Ethical Hacking Top 10 reasons to choose Jcow:- 1. Handle more traffic - Clean codes and Dynamic caching can lower the CPU load and  speed up your website. 2 Make your site more interactive - Well designed Jcow applications help you members to connect and communicate with others more effectively. 3 Add questions to the Registration Form - You can add new member fields, which will be displayed to the registration form, profile form, and the member browsing form. 4 Easily share stuff - Within the AJAX sharing Box, your members can publish status,  photos, videos, and blogs. 5 Customize and Extend your Jcow Network - A Jcow network consists of core apps(like "Friends" and "Messages") and optional apps(like "Blogs" and ""Videos"). You can enable/disable optional apps. You can also develop your own apps. 6 Every profile could be Unique - Members can customize their own profile theme and  add music play...
Post a Comment
Read more

HL7V2.x to HL7V3.0 Translation Issues Details-2

In continuation of my previous post this post lists the other issues associated with HL7 v2.x to HL7v3 translation Conformance Patterns: The other major issue with the transformation of messages is the behavior of application when a particular information exchange takes place. In HL7V3.0 apart from the trigger events and interactions there exists the notion of application role as senders and receivers. The application role is characterized as the entire set of interactions for which the sender and receiver are responsible for transmitting. HL7V3.0 clearly defines the possible interactions and the application behavior associated these interactions in the form of responses for which the sender and receiver needs to adhere to. The differences in messages between V2.x and V3.0 and absence of clear guidance on V2.x regarding application behavior on receipt of message makes the transformation exercise more difficult. Vocabulary: It is a well known fact that 80% of HL7 V2.x message failu...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hack WiFi Account From Phishing Attack With WifiPhisher

WiFi Phishing Attack With WifiPhisher Tool  Wifiphisher   is a security tool that mounts fast automated phishing attacks against WiFi networks in order to obtain secret passphrases and other credentials. It is a social engineering attack that unlike other methods it does not include any brute forcing. It is an easy way for obtaining credentials from captive portals and third party login pages or WPA/WPA2 secret passphrases. From the victim's perspective, the attack makes use in three phases: 1. Victim is being deauthenticated from her access point. Wifiphisher continuously jams all of the target access point's wifi devices within range by sending deauth packets to the client from the access point, to the access point from the client, and to the broadcast address as well. 2. Victim joins a rogue access point. Wifiphisher sniffs the area and copies the target access point's settings. It then creates a rogue wireless access point that is modeled on the target. It also sets up ...
Post a Comment
Read more