ITU-T SG 16 Work on E-health - Background

In May 2003, ITU-T Study Group 16 (Multimedia services, systems and terminals) organized a Workshop on Standardization in E-health with the support of ITU-D and participation of many key players in e-health standardization. The materials relating to the Workshop including the Final Report are available on the ITU-T website at the workshop web page at http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/e-health. Among the recommendations from the workshop was the creation of a study Question in SG 16 to address the needs of multimedia standardization for e-health applications.

SG 16 took the recommendation and prepared the skeleton of the new Question J/16, entitled "Multimedia framework for e-health applications", which was approved in January 2004. The approval of the Question was announced in TSB Circular 217 (of 5 March 2004). After the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly in October 2004, the Question was renumbered as Question 28/16.

The Question is first working on creating a roadmap of what standards exist, will coordinate its planned actions with other organizations developing e-health standards via the e-Health Standardization Coordination Group (eHSCG) or specific liaisons with other bodies and will provide support to the work in ITU-D SG 2.

ITU Study Groups:

• ITU-T/ SG 9, SG 12, SG 17, SG 19
• ITU-D/ SG 2
• ITU-R/ SG 8, SG 9

Other bodies:

• e-Health Standardization Coordination Group (eHSCG)
• World Health Organization (WHO) and its Regional Offices: EURO; EMRO; WPRO
• ISO/TC 215, CEN/TC 251, IEC, ETSI, IETF, IEEE 1073 and other relevant standardization bodies;
• HL7, DICOM, OASIS IHC TC and other relevant forums and consortia.