AIIM, the leading non-profit industry association that helps organizations find, control and optimize their information, and ASTM International, one of the largest voluntary standards development organizations in the world, announce the publication of the
Best Practices Guide - PDF Healthcare (AIIM/ASTM BP-01-2008).
This document describes a proposed, voluntary, industry-wide reference tool and guideline to describe the features and functionality of the Portable Document Format (PDF) for the healthcare industry. It is designed to facilitate a means by which healthcare information is captured, exchanged, preserved, and protected so that participants within the healthcare system can use the well-known and trusted PDF specification as the electronic container of the information.
This guide was developed to promote and accelerate the adoption of a digital healthcare record model using XML-based standards. With the introduction of complex healthcare industry legal and regulatory requirements that directly impact the patient and healthcare provider, the adoption of the PDF Healthcare Best Practices Guide will be driven by the need for usability, portability, simplicity and availability of healthcare information.
"Using PDF in healthcare will greatly improve the communications between patients and their providers and all the members of the healthcare chain as well as provide greater control of the patient information," said John Mancini, President, AIIM. "This will ensure that the patient is an active participant in the exchange of critical healthcare information."
"The new best practices guide can help healthcare providers reduce the unnecessary errors created in the transmission of paper-based health records, by advocating and defining an electronic solution," said Melonie Warfel, Director, WW Standards and Life Sciences at Adobe Systems. "The use of PDF provides users with a familiar electronic environment, and helps eliminate the need for specialized technology or proprietary readers/viewers giving consumers access to their healthcare information at any time, anywhere and on any device."
"PDF Healthcare, through the use of the PDF format, provides an additional cost effective, easy to implement and secure means for the exchange and communication of personalized patient and provider information," said Omid Moghadam, Director, Personal Health Record Programs, Intel.
Future work being conducted by the voluntary PDF Healthcare Working Group is the development of two companion documents to the Best Practices Guide - an Implementation and Demonstration Guide. These guides will provide use cases and implementation examples of PDF for healthcare documents and records. The Best Practices Guide will be available on the AIIM and ASTM web sites for download. The Implementation and Demonstration Guides are being developed by AIIM and will be available for download from the AIIM website. For additional information or to become involved with the work of the Working Group, please contact Ebony Dowtin, AIIM Standards Program Coordinator at edowtin@aiim.org.
Contributors to the PDF Healthcare Best Practices Guide include the American Academy of Pediatrics, Adobe Systems, Inc., American Academy of Family Physicians, CapMed, Dak Systems Consulting, eClinicalWorks, Generator LLC, Good Health Network, Intel Corporation, Massachusetts Medical Society, NextGen, Northrup-Grumman, Schering-Plough, Voice of the Physician, and the ASTM E31 Healthcare Informatics Committee. Organizations that supported the Best Practices Guide work include Cerner Corporation, DrFirst, Epocrates, Harvard University, MedCommons, MinuteClinic, MEDecisions, Northern Illinois Physicians for Connectivity, Point and Click Solutions, and SureScripts.
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About AIIM (www.aiim.org)
AIIM is the community that provides education, research, and best practices to help organizations find, control and optimize their information. With 50,000 industry professionals as associates, the association is international in scope, independent, implementation-focused, and, as the representative of the entire ECM industry - including users, suppliers, and the channel - acts as the industry's intermediary.
As a neutral and unbiased source of information, AIIM serves the needs of its members and the industry by providing educational opportunities, professional development, reference and knowledge resources, networking events, and industry advocacy. Visit the Conquer Information Chaos BLOG at http://aiim.typepad.com/aiim_blog/ .
ASTM International
ASTM International is one of the largest voluntary standards development organizations in the world a trusted source for technical standards for materials, products, systems, and services. Known for their high technical quality and market relevancy, ASTM International standards have an important role in the information infrastructure that guides design, manufacturing and trade in the global economy. ASTM's involvement in the development of the Best Practices Guide was through its Technical Committee E31 on Healthcare Informatics develops international standards related to the architecture, content, storage, security, confidentiality, functionality, and communication of information used within healthcare and healthcare decision making, including patient-specific information and knowledge.
For more information contact:
Betsy Fanning
AIIM
301.755.2682 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 301.755.2682 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
bfanning@aiim.org
Dan Smith
ASTM International
610-832-9727 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 610-832-9727 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
dsmith@astm.org
Quotes in support of PDF Healthcare
"DrFirst is pleased to see this voluntary effort bring together several disparate companies involved in creating standard ways of exchanging both simple and complex clinical and healthcare information. The PDF for Healthcare BPG moves us forward particularly in the area of encapsulating complex lists and datasets such as the CCR and adds the attributes of a "document". This will facilitate the incorporation of essential information into both legacy and newer healthcare IT applications and tools. Our ePrescribing focus with complex medication histories and related information will greatly benefit others who need to share this information, particularly at the point of care, but also in areas of research that will help to make healthcare safer, better and more efficient," said Thomas E. Sullivan, MD, Chief Strategic Officer, DrFirst.
"PDF is a commonly-used format for electronically sending documents," said Girish Kumar Navani, president of eClinicalWorks. "Putting best practices in place for using PDF in healthcare will help promote this format in the exchange of health records, benefiting both patients and providers. We are excited to be a part of this initiative."
"Consumers have differing healthcare data security and privacy needs, depending on their medical and personal situations. The PDF Healthcare Best Practices Guide includes information to help individuals, healthcare providers, and industry organizations make appropriate choices using the security and privacy measures currently possible within PDF. The goal of the Best Practices Guide is to facilitate universal and secure healthcare data access and portability" said John Calder, Generator LLC and Chair, Security and Privacy Committee, PDF Healthcare Working Group.
"PDF Healthcare empowers patients and promotes interoperability by putting a familiar and approachable face on the CCR standard," said Adrian Gropper MD, MedCommons.
"We see the PDF Healthcare Best Practices Guide as a tool to advance the principles of protecting, promoting and restoring the physical & mental well-being of residents of countries around the world. It can facilitate reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers to the principles of universality, accessibility, portability and comprehensiveness. Medirex is integrating these principles into its solutions to assist in the barriers faced by many health delivery providers," said Ken Caskenette of Medirex Systems - Canada.
"It has been a truly productive partnership between ASTM and AIIM in developing this new voluntary Best Practices Guide for the many uses of PDF in health care, and I am very proud of the work that has been done and grateful to all who participated in the effort. We foresee any number of pilot projects and demonstrations occurring in 2008 and beyond that will prove the value of combining the document management assets of PDF with the structured content of both existing electronic document formats and the new XML-based standards. The ubiquity and ease-of-use of PDF will be a real plus in helping patients and consumers to access and use their own health records for continuity of health care." David Kibbe, MD and chair of ASTM E31 Health Informatics Technical Committee.
