ISO 21090 FDIS approved

Jan 31, 2011

ISO 21090, “Healthcare Data Types” has passed the final ballot cycle (known as FDIS - Final Draft Information Standard). It’s been a long 8 year saga since Charlie McCay and I first imagined it, and realised that the long stand-off between CEN/ISO and HL7 regarding data types could be resolved. While I carried the editorial load, there’s a lot of people to thank. Charlie McCay was as much responsible for the initial idea as me. I received substantial contributions concerning the details of the specification from Paul Biron, Lloyd McKenzie, Gunther Schadow, and Tom Beale (note, though, that the latter two are distinctly unhappy with the outcome). Richard Dixon-Hughes, Ed Hammond, Dipak Kalra, Melvin Reynolds, and Woody Beeler all contributed greatly to shepherding the specification through the tricky multi-committee process.

Institutionally, the English NHS (Connecting for Health) helped greatly to get the project off the ground (thanks Ken Lunn and Ravi Natarajan), and there was enthusiastic support from the National Cancer Institute and also the National e-Health Transition Authority here in Australia.

Now the process starts all over again….