Overview
ISO/TR 18307:2001 - "Health informatics - Interoperability and compatibility in messaging and communication standards - Key characteristics" is a Technical Report from ISO/TC 215 that defines a set of key characteristics intended to enable trusted health information interchange between communicating application systems. The report focuses on achieving inter-application interoperability and compatibility for healthcare messaging and communication standards, addressing trust, accountability, record integrity and service requirements across the healthcare ecosystem.
Key topics and technical requirements
The Technical Report organizes practical interoperability concerns into principles and a comprehensive list of key characteristics. Important technical topics include:
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Trust and accountability
- Ensured trust, trust constituency, scope and unit of accountability
- Authentication, non-repudiation and auditability
- Chain of trust, audit trails and accountability of agents and actors
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Record and data characteristics
- Health record rights, obligations, composition and completeness
- Electronic records, record chronology, permanence, persistence and indelibility
- Data integrity, data definition and data registries
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Security and cryptography
- Authentication mechanisms, digital signature and public key infrastructure (PKI)
- Audit controls and non-repudiation services
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Architectural and operational features
- Architectural basis for interoperability and master files/registries
- OLTP and OLAP considerations, fault tolerance, scalability
- Time and data synchrony, version management and validation
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Communication and workflow
- Trusted end-to-end information flows, disclosure/export rules
- Workflow, care plans, problem lists, decision support, concurrent and retrospective record status
Applications - who uses this standard
ISO/TR 18307:2001 provides criteria and guidance for:
- Standards developers and working groups creating messaging/communication standards for healthcare interoperability
- Software vendors and implementers building EHRs, HIEs, clinical messaging platforms and middleware
- Healthcare providers, CIOs and system integrators defining procurement, integration and governance requirements
- Regulators and auditors assessing trustworthy health information exchange practices
- Clinical informaticians and architects specifying authentication, audit and record-management behaviors
Practical uses include designing secure messaging interfaces, defining master registries, specifying audit and non-repudiation requirements, and validating interoperability conformance across systems.
Related standards
ISO/TR 18307 references and complements other ISO and IEC standards relevant to security, ODP architecture and identification, for example:
Keywords: ISO/TR 18307:2001, health informatics, interoperability, messaging standards, communication standards, health information exchange, EHR interoperability, PKI, auditability, data integrity.