Together, we hope to create robust, community-driven consensus on key digital standards and interoperability frameworks for Community Health Information Systems (CHISs).
We propose to begin the COP’s work by conducting a Delphi study to solicit insights and build consensus among a systematically selected pool of global experts. The Delphi method has been widely used in information systems and health research as a means of obtaining the most reliable possible consensus from a group of experts., A number of studies have shown that for questions requiring expert judgment, the average of individual responses is inferior to the averages produced by group decision processes such as the Delphi method.
Our consortium will then transition to an analysis of open standards that can be leveraged to deliver the workflows outlined in the profile. We will analyze HL7 FHIR as a baseline interoperability standard, IHE profiles such as the International Patient Summary (IPS) for standardized information exchange, terminology services such as ICD-11, OpenConceptLab and LOINC, Clinical Quality Language for logic execution, and best practices identified by the OpenHIE community and the World Health Organization Computable Guidelines working groups. This analysis will be added to the profile and set recommendations that can be balloted by the appropriate standards body.
Finally, we will develop a reference architecture for interoperability that accounts for the variability of CHISs deployed across the globe. This technical document will present an architecture that supports the content of the profile. Additionally, it will identify existing CHISs that support the identified workflows in the profile.