Healthcare Information Standards & Testing: A Concept Paper

This paper was inspired by preliminary discussions between NIST and members of the healthcare community who are impacted by the use of emerging information technology. Topics of discussion included the current state of standards work in the healthcare community, the requirements for security, information assurance and continuity-of-operations, as well as the critical need for information interoperability to provide healthcare information and clinical care. Participants of the recently held NIST Workshop, Information Technologies for Healthcare: Barriers to Implementation, reiterated these same topics. Throughout a major theme has emerged the plethora of healthcare standards and the need for conformance tests and testing programs. This initial paper focuses on options for analyzing, defining, and organizing appropriate standards for the healthcare community and the issues surrounding conformance testing. Further studies and discussions may uncover more information regarding other issues and challenges facing the healthcare industry and its segments, including, but not limited to, security, user interfaces, information retrieval, pervasive computing technologies and networking. These issues could then foster opportunities that allow NIST to work collaboratively with the healthcare industry to address the challenges that arise.