A recent agreement between Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) and the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) has given the green light to establishing a new Canada-wide coordination body. Housed by Infoway, the Infoway Standards Collaborative will manage, deliver and maintain health information standards, including those standards related to pan-Canadian electronic health records (EHR).
Currently,
The Infoway Standards Collaborative will take on several of CIHI’s initiatives already underway that support health information standards, including the Partnership for Health Information Standards, HL7 Canada and liaison activities with Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM). While CIHI will no longer be managing the same slate of standardization activities, it will continue to provide leadership in the development and maintenance of the key content standards (such as ICD-10-CA, CCI, MIS Standards) underpinning its information products and services.
Based on extensive consultations and collaboration, the Blueprint is focused on interoperability – the capability of computer systems to seamlessly communicate with one another. It provides guidance for integrating the approximately 40,000 existing health information systems in use across the country, while remaining flexible to allow for incorporating new and better information systems and capabilities.
This announcement follows on the heels of the release of a revised version of the Electronic Health Record Solution Blueprint developed by Infoway. The revised blueprint provides stakeholders developing Electronic Health Record Solutions with a technology framework for sharing health information securely and appropriately across
For more information on Canada Health Infoway, please go to www.infoway-inforoute.ca .
Portion of this article originally published in CIHI’s Directions newsletter, June 2006 issue.
