Letter from the Editor in Chief

I am delighted to welcome you to the first issue of The Standards Standard. Our goal is to provide you a twice yearly update on the global scene of health informatics standards, including news and feature articles to provide insight into the direction of travel, and challenges and successes in progressing towards the vision of joined up health information including the electronic health record.

 

The Standards Standard is inspired by Don Detmer, whom all of you will know, and who has observed the growth of worldwide activity in health informatics standardization but witnessed how difficult it is for the wider AMIA community to follow what is going on in the various Standards Development Organisations (SDOs) and to provide viewpoints and feedback to them. Hence, The Standards Standard!

 

Also, I am delighted to welcome my Editorial Board: names you will have heard: Rebecca Kush, Founder and President of CDISC; Stephen Kay, convener of CEN Technical Committee 251 Working Group I; John Quinn, Chief Technology Officer of HL7; Jennifer Zelmer, Chief Executive Officer of IHTSDO; Kent Spackmann, Chief Terminologist of IHTSDO; Christopher Chute, Chair of U.S. Delegation to ISO Informatics Technical Committee 215; Daniel Vreeman, Assistant Research Professor at Regenstrief Institute, providing expertise on LOINC; Peter Greene, Executive Director of MedBiquitous; and Betsy Humphreys, Deputy Director of the National Library of Medicine at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. They represent the major standards development organizations, and have given Don and me their strong support for AMIA's goal of increasing professional and public engagement in standards. They will contribute news and updates from the bodies they represent, and using their wider knowledge of the field, provide periodic reviews of hot topics. We will also invite guest authors from time to time to provide expert commentary on contemporary issues. In this first Spring issue we present an article by Professor Chris Chute on Meaningful Use, which is the formal U.S. definition of the criteria for actual electronic health record adoption and usage (as opposed to system capability) that will qualify a healthcare provider organization for reimbursement of the costs of that EHR system. Although a U.S.-specific policy instrument, its publication has already stimulated worldwide discussion of the potential benefits of EHRs. For our second article, Professor Stephen Kay, convener of Working Group I of CEN TC 251, Europe’s principal standards development organization, has written a thoughtful reflection on the five common criticisms of standards developers.

 

This issue also contains updates from several of our contributing SDOs, and news of forthcoming events.

 

In our fall 2010 issue—due out in December—we will launch a forum for Letters to the Editor, so that you, too, can have an opportunity to contribute views and ask questions about the world of health informatics standards. In the meantime, please feel free to email me at d.kalra@chime.ucl.ac.uk to give me