In the United States, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is accredited by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). ISO has over 200 technical committees (TC), whose subjects range from healthcare informatics (TC215) to plastics (TC61) and others. ISO is a network of the national standards institutes of 153 countries, on the basis of one member per country (ANSI for the USA).
HIMSS accepted the delegation for TC215 from ANSI, as the accredited standard development organization, ANSI may elect to keep the secretariat position or delegate it to another organization.
ISO/TC 215 has eight working groups, data structure, data interchange, semantic content, security, health cards, e-pharmacy and medicines business, devices and business requirements for an EHR. Each of these groups is working on standards development in their specific areas.
Currently, 26 countries are participant countries in TC 215 including the US with another 16 as observer countries involved in this important work. Most of the formal balloting process is done electronically, however 1-2 times per year as many of the group as possible meet in a plenary session.
For additional Standards work visit the Standards Insight archive.
For further information, please contact Audrey Dickerson, incoming secretary for ISO/TC 215 at adickerson@himss.org
Susan Matney
Bibliography
Judy Ozbolt, Vanderbilt University
AMIA 2002 Development Evaluation
Bibliography on Terminology Standards
Nursing Terminologies for NHII
SNOMED Forms New Division To Promote International Adoption
SNOMED's international division changes name to reflect its recent changes. The new division marks a step forward in the international adoptioon of SNOMED. Read the full press release at http://www.himss.org/content/files/CAPSTS_news_091107.pdf.
HIMSS Approves Position on HITSP Interoperability Recommendations
The HIMSS Board of Directors approved, at its June 2007 board meeting, the following position statement in support of the Health Information Technology Standards Panel.
New International Standards Group Formed, Acquires Rights to SNOMED-CT
The newly-formed International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO®) has acquired the intellectual property rights of SNOMED Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT®) and its antecedents from the College of American Pathologists (CAP) for $7.8 million, marking a milestone in the international standardization of health data.
