Brief overview of various healthcare tools, methods, framework and standards

Abstract

There exists a multitude of standards with regards to health information systems (HIS) and the electronic exchange of commercial transactions containing private data that must be used amongst various service providers to adequately perform their duties to patients. The evolution of health information systems has been guided by business interests as well as from government legislation creating a somewhat fragmented system with many marginally compatible components exchanging patient sensitive information electronically. The many standards in use today include: HIPAA, EDI, HL-7, DICOM, IEEE 11073, ICD-9, and CPT. In this chapter,we discuss various healthcare standards listed above and their history briefly.