Health informatics — A case study on establishing standardized measurement data in cardiac examination reports

Cardiac examination – export measurement data (CE-EMD) consists of the numeric and text data that is exported from medical devices and reporting systems during cardiology examinations.

In cardiac examinations, multiple devices are used simultaneously for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes, and corresponding reports are produced by each device and system. The data required for these reports is generally different for each medical facility, as well as for the clinicians performing the procedures. In addition to these general interoperability challenges, medical researchers want to utilise such data for secondary purposes such as analytics research programs.

This document reposts a case study on how to establish and maintain standardised CE-EMD, especially for enabling its secondary use for medical research. The document includes information on building a representative coalition of stakeholders to identify and establish specifications; standardising both the content and format in reports; and maintaining and extending the specifications over time.

Main sections:

· Scope

· Establishing and maintaining export measurement data standards

· Stakeholder coalition establishment, roles and responsibilities

· Semantic content standardisation

· Specification maintenance

· Governance policy establishment

· Annex A: Japan SEAMAT program case study