Standardization

In large projects, with more than one hospital involved, the lack of interoperability of systems and software has been identified as a central problems.

To solve this problem several standards, such as HL7 and DICOM have been developed. The focus of these standards is mainly the transfer of image and patient data. Whereas the control of the monitoring devices from a distance, is still limited and only possible with proprietary systems of individual manufacturers.

NEST has formed a standardization group that aims to define a telemedicine standard called TM7. TM7 is supposed to allow the transfer of functions over distances- which would be a major improvement of services. In the first step, existing telemedicine standards are categorized and evaluated according its usefulness for TM7. As a result, a report on the status quo in the area of standardization of eHealth will be made available.