International SDO’s Joint Initiative Council releases inaugural Standards Set for Patient Summary

With major Canadian digital health and standards leadership, the JIC collaborative of 8 Standards Development Organizations (SDO’s) just published the first standards set prioritized for completion, the Patient Summary Standards Set (PSSS).

Three Canadians, Elizabeth Keller, Don Newsham and Michael Nusbaum (incoming JIC Chair), along with two other JIC coordinating group members, Jane Miller and Steve Kay and a number of global clinical and standards experts from multiple SDO’s undertook to help achieve the JIC goal of contributing to better global patient health outcomes by providing strategic leadership in the specification of sets of implementable standards for health information sharing.

This guidance document provides a coherent collection of standards and standards artefacts that support a specific use case, that of Patient Summary, a priority internationally and also across Canada.  The PSSS describes the use case, the associated dataset, the categorization and criteria for choosing standards, the applicable sets of standards and related artefacts, the framework and an example for conformity assessment and information sheets on the context and leading practices for patient summary standards.

This guide, meant to be informative and not normative and available free of charge, is a foundation to the process of identifying, assessing and choosing the standards, artefacts and profiles most suited to satisfying particular requirements.  It is meant for clinicians who wish to understand, implementers who deploy, software developers who build the tools and systems, experts who work in the fields that touch health and standards, and most importantly those governance bodies that make decisions to fund new digital deployments.

The PSSS is a ‘living document’, and will be maintained and updated as new standards evolve and feedback is provided. The JIC Patient Summary Standards Set can be accessed on the JIC website which includes a number of related documents covering the early scope and foundation, the standards categorization, review comments received, a FAQ and a comments sheet for feedback.  All are invited to review, use and help refine this inaugural Standards Set.

A Press Release is also available.

In supporting Canadian health care and our many clinicians, regions, hospitals, provincial agencies and ministries and our vendor and consultant communities, this Patient Summary Standards Set grows our collective efforts to improve efficiency, coordination and safe information exchange and be a catalyst and leader in digital health.

Don Newsham, Chair ISO/TC215 Standards Mirror Committee and Head of Delegation

Elizabeth Keller, Vice President, Product Srategy & Delivery, Ontario MD

Michael Newsbaum, President, M.H. Nusbaum