CET+-+Standards+Identification



toc Within the S&I Framework there are many different processes that require examining current standards associated with healthcare information exchange. The following process highlights the activities and points throughout the S&I lifecycle that standards are involved.



1.0 Standards Identification
During the Pre-Discovery and Discovery phases of an initiative, it is important to identify and document which standards are being considered as part of that initiative’s solution. The **Candidate Standards List** is an artifact designed to foster this activity. This list is important for two reasons:
 * 1) //**Traceability**//. Creation of a Candidate Standards List allows all participants in an initiative to make sure that all possible standards are considered within an initiative. To that end, it’s important to aim for high sensitivity, low specificity when creating a candidate standards list – in other words, it’s okay to have false positives here! It’s much more important to consider anything that is feasibly applicable – initial passes during Standards Analysis can quickly whittle this list down based on factors such as business requirements of the initiative. When an initiative is complete, this list provides the first place to see whether a given standard was considered as part of an initiative’s solution. From this list, one can go to the Standards Analysis artifact to determine the disposition of any given standard (see Harmonization's S&I Standards Analysis).
 * 2) //**Communication.**// The Candidate Standards List marks the beginning of the Standards Development Support Team’s involvement with an initiative. The SDS team is charged with developing and maintaining relationships with the various Standards Developing Organizations in the community to support S&I Framework Activities. When a standard is identified on the list, the SDS team begins to confirm or build the relationships necessary to support the initiative. This can include making copies of the standard available for review, ensuring that sufficient technical expertise is present in the initiative, inviting a representative of the standard’s developing organization to participate in the initiative, keeping the developing organization apprised of the initiative’s activities, and eventually bringing any potential changes in the standard back to the consideration of the developing organization. These aspects, as well as others, are captured in the Communications Plan (see below).

The Candidate Standards List is generated by performing a full environmental scan and collecting input from the community members of the initiative while the use case and functional requirement efforts are going on in parallel. Once a standard is identified and gained community consensus as to its potential relevance, the corresponding SDO should be immediately engaged. This list should continue to grow as business requirements are defined and refined, and should hit its peak by the time the use case and requirements reach consensus and at this point the list in its entirety should go through a verbal consensus. However, the Candidate Standards List may be added to after this point if, for instance, there is a change in scope, change in requirements, or if a previously unidentified standard comes to light.

The image below is an excerpt of the Transition of Care Candidate Standards list dated October 18th, 2011. For the entire document please visit the Appendix.



The following sections will discuss SDO engagement and a proposed SDO communication plan in more detail. //NOTE: the term Standards Development Organization (SDO) is used here to mean ANSI-accredited Standards Development Organizations as well as other relevant vocabulary, terminology, and other supporting organizations.//

1.1 SDO Engagement
Maintaining timely communication and engaging with standards organizations throughout the development lifecycle is crucial for successful completion of the S&I Initiatives. A contact should be established within each Standards Development Organization (SDO) whose standard is being considered for the initiative. Depending on existing SDO relationship within the S&I Framework, the following could be used to keep the SDO informed of discussions regarding their standard and general update on the initiative:
 * Monthly update e-newsletter
 * Regular SDO conference calls
 * Individual e-mails and invitations to workgroup meetings
 * Inviting SDO representatives to community meetings
 * SDO working group meetings attended by initiative representatives as standards are created or modified/harmonized

Once established, the type of communication should be planned and documented for each standard identified in Pre-Discovery and updated as necessary as the Initiative progresses. Once a standard has been selected in the Discovery Phase, the SDO may be further engaged for standards modifications or development.

1.2 SDO Communication Plan Guidance
A communication plan is a useful tool to organize the various contacts that are made at different SDOs and provide a proper representation of the interactions to date. Please see below for examples of how the communication plan can be populated.

The first tab of the communication plan as depicted below, focuses on capturing the contact information.




 * The "Selected Standard", "SDO", "Source Identified" and "Description" columns should be populated based on the list of candidate standards
 * The "Representative" columns should be populated with contact information with an official representative of the SDO. A SDO Representative should have the authority to resolve identified gaps in a standard, as necessary.
 * The "Expert" columns should be populated with contact information of anyone with in-depth knowledge of the standard and available to support the initiative on a regular basis. This person may or may not be officially affiliated with the SDO. //NOTE: if the representative has the availability and desire to provide regular support it is possible for the Representative to be listed as an Expert.//

The second tab of the communication plan as depicted below, puts more emphasis on collecting information related to the specific initiative phase and how the various Representatives and Experts interact throughout the Initiative life-cycle.




 * "Type” column has a dropdown; either “Rep” or “Expert” should be selected
 * Entries in “SDO” and “Standard” columns should match an entry within the Stds Contacts tab
 * “Contact Name” column automatically populates from the corresponding entry in the “Stds Contacts” tab. In order to find the corresponding entry, the values in “Type” and “Standard” columns are used.
 * The “Initiative Phase/Involvement Methodology” columns are intended to be a way to track how the identified contacts were engaged. It should be noted that these methods should change by Type (Rep vs. Expert) & Phase; the template is populated with some typical engagement methods per phase and by Type.

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