IT - Standards and Standardization Approaches in Healthcare

Abstract

E-health basically comprises health services and information delivered or enhanced through the Internet and related technologies. The future healthcare system and its services, enabling e-health, are based on the communication between all information systems of all participants of an integrated treatment. Connecting the elements of each healthcare system (general practitioners, hospitals, health insurance companies, pharmacies, and so on) — even across national boarders — is an important issue for information systems research in healthcare. Current developments, such as upcoming or already-deployed electronic healthcare chip cards (that are to be used across Europe), show the need for Europe-wide standards and norms. In this article, we first outline the advantages of the standards, and then describe their main characteristics. After the introduction of communication standards, we present their comparison with the aim to support the different functions in the healthcare information systems. Subsequently, we describe the documentation standards, and discuss the goals of existing standardization approaches. Implications conclude the article.