Electronic Health Records

Standards and Standard-Setting Organizations

• American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
  A voluntary organization of more than 1,300 members that creates standards for the computer industry, including standards for programming languages and in technical areas ranging from electrical specifications to communications protocols.
• ASTM Committee E31 on Healthcare Informatics
  Develops standards related to the architecture, content, storage, security, confidentiality, functionality, and communication of information used within healthcare and healthcare decision-making.
• Current Procedural Terminology (CPT)
  Developed by the American Medical Association, these are codes used for the billing of medical procedures, updated annually.
• Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM)
  A standard developed for the transmission of images by the joint committee of the American College of Radiology and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association. DICOM is vendor independent. DICOM 3.0 is the current version.
• Health Level 7 (HL7)
  An international standard for electronic data exchange in healthcare that defines the format and content of messages that pass between medical applications. HL7 messaging standards are endorsed by the Department of Health and Human Services. HL7 is supported by every major medical informatics system vendor in the United States. Health Level Seven (HL7) also refers to one of several American National Standards Institute's-accredited Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) operating in the healthcare arena.
• The HL7 Electronic Health Record (EHR) Technical Committee's Home Page
  A gateway for information related to the ongoing HL7's Electronic Health Record Systems standards development work; provides information on the model EHR standard.
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Standards Development Program
  The IEEE Standards Association has more than 8,350 individual and almost 60 corporate members.
• Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Patient Safety Data Standards
  Group within IOM that produces a detailed plan to facilitate the development of data standards that apply to the collection, coding, and classification of patient safety information.
• The International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Edition, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM)
  Based on the World Health Organization's Ninth Revision, International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9). ICD-9-CM is the official system of assigning codes to diagnoses and procedures associated with hospital utilization in the United States. The ICD-9 is used to code and classify mortality data from death certificates. The Department of Health and Human Services had been considering a proposal that health care providers adopt the ICD-10-CM classification system.
• Logical Observation Identifiers, Names, and Codes (LOINC)
  A clinical terminology for the electronic exchange of clinical laboratory results endorsed by the Department of Health and Human Services. LOINC was designed to be compatible with HL7 messages and has been endorsed by the American Clinical Laboratory Association and the College of American Pathologists. LOINC is one of a group of designated standards for use in U.S. federal government systems for the electronic exchange of clinical health information. The National Library of Medicine supports the ongoing development of LOINC through a contract arrangement. LOINC information is available from the Regenstrief Institute (www.regenstrief), which produces LOINC and maintains the LOINC database and its supporting documentation.
• MedBiquitous
  The American National Standards Institute-accredited developer of information technology standards for health care education and competence assessment.
• National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP)
  NCPDP creates and promotes data interchange and processing standards for the pharmacy services sector of the health care industry, including those for billing pharmacy claims and services, rebates, pharmacy ID cards, and for business functions between prescribers and pharmacies (e-prescribing).
• National Drug File Reference Terminology (NDF-RT) and RxNorm
  These projects are focused on improving the interoperability of drug terminology. The NDF-RT is being developed for the Department of Veterans Affairs as a reference standard for medications to support a variety of clinical, administrative, and analytical purposes. The National Library of Medicine is developing the RxNorm Project to add new concepts to the UMLS for clinical drug representations.
• National Library of Medicine's Unified Medical Language System (UMLS)
  This language system was designed to facilitate the development of computer systems that behave as though they understand the meaning of the language of biomedicine and health. The National Library of Medicine produces and distributes the UMLS Knowledge Sources (databases) and associated software tools for use by system developers in building or enhancing electronic information systems that create, process, retrieve, integrate, and/or aggregate biomedical and health data and information.
• UMLS FAQ page
• X12N
  Dominant standard for electronic commerce. American National Standards Institutes Accredited Standards Committee X12 (ASC X12) selected X12N as the standard for electronic data interchange to be used in administrative and financial healthcare transactions (excluding retail pharmacy transactions) in compliance with HIPAA.