Archived Newsroom • Press Release |
|
New ITU standard enables health data exchange
Approval marks accelerated push for e-health standards
Geneva, 14 March 2014 – Following calls for increased global
coordination of standards enabling e-health, ITU has offered first stage
approval to an important specification enabling an exchange of multimedia health
data between a health provider, a controlling function and patient.
The new standard will enable different e-health systems to smoothly exchange
patient health data in both low- and high-resource settings, making it ideal for
applications in both developed and developing countries.
e-Health experts explain that a combination of a common data definition with
connectivity across different systems – ranging from the personal health and
point-of-care devices described in Recommendation ITU-T H.810 (see
press release) to a range of health management back-ends –
will provide simple, secure and scalable interoperability.
ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun I. Touré noted, “In addition to technical
issues, discussions on e-health encompass legal, ethical, cultural, economic and
regional aspects. We have seen increased impetus by the e-health community to
engage with ITU in order to facilitate a rapid rollout of these technologies
that have such a valuable role to play in bolstering global health initiatives.”
The development of Recommendation ITU-T H.860, Multimedia e-health data
exchange services: Architecture, services and data dictionary was led by ITU
Member Platform Health,
a non-profit organization, based on successful reference implementations in a
range of countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Masahito Kawamori, Rapporteur: “We would not have been able to make such
rapid progress without the opportunities for networking and discussions at the
two WHO Forums on Health Data Standardization and Interoperability in which ITU
was an active participant. ITU-T H.860 will also contribute to the ongoing work
of the WHO Health Systems and Innovation Cluster.”
The common health schema of Recommendation ITU-T H.860 is applicable to a
wide spectrum of diseases (non-communicable, communicable, maternal/child,
trauma, etc.), interventions (preventive, curative, palliative), and health IT
systems (from simple standalone, to integrated care, web services and mobile
applications).
Note to technical editors
ITU-T-H.860 standard sets-out:
- Common Health Data Schema (made-up of existing data
standards such as ICD-10, CPT-4/5, LOINC, SNOMED, etc.)
- Collaborative Development Framework (Governance)
- Basic Service Architecture (enabling data security and
scalability)
For more information,
please contact:
Sanjay Acharya
Chief, Media Relations and Public Information, ITU
|
Toby Johnson
Senior Communication Officer, ITU
|
About ITU...