In October, Talkstandards.com hosted an open forum focused towards issues related to interoperability within European standardization and framed against the backdrop of the current EU activities. In addition to a series of expert keynote contributions (summarized below – please follow the links to access the articles in full) two exclusive interviews were conducted. The event can be found her: www.talkstandards.com/reforming-eu-standardization.

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Address the “holes” in existing standardization:

1. Help define the basic terms.
Without clear definitions, practice will be slipshod.
• What is a standard? It is not practical to transfer anything without a reference. Such ubiquity strongly suggests a “physical” law and mathematical form.
• What is an open standard? Most current descriptions are very biased.
• What is an open standardization process? Is it no IPR? Is RAND sufficient? Free standards documents? Fair representation of all stakeholders? World wide agreement?
“Open standards” is like “democratic government,” it is easy to say but very hard to achieve. First define it. (This task is underway in the EU, but deserves much higher visibility.) Then work to make it more likely.

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This is the first in a series of articles in which contributor Stacy Baird will analyse the role of governments in standards setting initiatives which will be posted on a bi-weekly basis – Editor

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On Thursday February 25, Talkstandards hosted a lively open forum on ICT Standardization and eHealth.

Ajit Jaokar spoke of the possibility that eHealth will take off in emerging markets and what the implications thereof could be. As an illustration, Jaokar mentioned the M-Pesa mobile payment service which took off in Kenya, serving 6.5 million subscribers by May 2009
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In an exclusive interview with Talkstandards, Professor David Ingram of openEHR, one of the most innovative players in the eHealth field, outlines some of his expectations for the future of ICT in the health care sector. This transcript has been prepared from notes taken during a telephone interview on February 22nd.

Part II: eHealth in an international perspective
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In an exclusive interview with Talkstandards, Professor David Ingram of openEHR, one of the most innovative players in the eHealth field, outlines some of his expectations for the future of ICT in the health care sector. This transcript has been prepared from notes taken during a telephone interview on February 22nd.

Part I: The Future of eHealth
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eHealth development and implementation are prioritized areas in Europe, both on EU and National level. In March, a ministerial meeting on eHealth will be held in Barcelona in connection to eHealth Week 2010 and World of Health IT Conference where hopefully, some important issues on how to bring eHealth implementation and interoperability forward. In order to reach the goals set up in the i2010 eHealth Action Plan, actions need to be taken quickly.
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The Obama Administration has made eHealth deployment a prioritized issue and through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, approximately $ 19 billion was made available for spending in Healthcare IT infrastrucure.$ 17 billion were earmarked for incentive payments for the use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs); this program is now starting to take shape.
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The openEHR Foundation is an international non-profit foundation founded in 2000, with the ambition to make interoperable and lifelong electronic health records (EHR) a reality and improve medical care in the information society through the open standard specification openEHR.
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One of the core objectives of the European Union is the creation of a single market which entails free mobility of goods, capital, people and services. Standardization within eHealth can be regarded as a further step towards a single market for health care services.
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