ICT standards in the health sector: current situation and ... - empirica

ICT standards in the health sectorstandards (20% / 36% ).There were not many differences between the responses of the various sub-groups. Oneof the more striking deviations was that a majority of four of the six SDO representativesdisagreed that are “generally too many e-health standards”.Exhibit 3-3: Assessment of the current situation in e-health standards (in %)-60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100generally too many e-health standards8283620too many conflicting e-health standards5175121lack of widely used e-health standards133955lack of sufficientlydeveloped e-healthstandards3124040lack of e-healthstandards for EHRs10204321lack of e-healthstandards harmonisationactivities5143540I strongly disagree I somewhat disagree I somewhat agree I strongly agreen = 94 respondents. Figures do not add up to 100% because answers of “no response” areincluded but not shown.Source: SeBW e-Health Online Expert Survey 2007.Individual statements21 respondents commented in various ways, often favouring strong measures to improvethe current situation. For example, one respondent commented on a supposedlyinefficient development of standards: “We've been researching on e-health standard fordecades, and advances seem terribly slow. Many groups redo what other did almost adecade ago. (…) Publicly available reference implementation may be one approach tospeed up uptake of standards and innovative research in this field.”Further suggestions included enforcing harmonisation activities between the existingSDOs – particularly with regard to EHRs –, starting a certification process for e-healthstandards and adoptions, developing open standards, and increasing user orientationand participation in the development process.50