Federal Health Architecture (FHA)

Current Tasks | Standards | Federal Health Architecture Products

FHA Activities - Standards

The FHA has been actively engaged in the standards development process through its work group the Consolidated Health Informatics (CHI) initiative, which is an integral part of the FHA program. The FHA is responsible for technical coordination and leadership to advance federal health IT interoperability and adoption of health IT standards that have been endorsed by the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP). Responsibilities include:

• Providing input into the development of the national health IT agenda, including the federal perspective on health IT standards, systems certification criteria, health IT network architecture and other issues.
• Assisting agencies with the implementation of this agenda, including standards adoption, applied architecture and other activities
• Ensuring accountability for the adoption of endorsed health IT standards within federal agencies

As the standards development process moves forward, the FHA will broaden its role in standards harmonization. By leveraging the expertise and achievements of the CHI initiatives, the work of CHI will take place within the broader context of the HITSP. CHI as a standards adoption process will be integrated into the HITSP to help fill the federal role in establishing priorities for health IT interoperability and establishing standards. The work that the CHI team has performed to develop federal standards will be an important input into the HITSP process. FHA, through CHI, provides a forum for federal participants to collaborate and consult with each other to articulate a federal perspective within the HITSP standards selection process.

CHI Accomplishments

• 30 Adopted Standards; 5 Recommendations in Progress
• Developed Implementation Guideline Template
• Endorsed 2 DICOM (medical and dental) Conformance Requirements and an HL7 DCA Discharge Summary Implementation Guide

Interoperability Specifications

HITSP will deliver specific implementation level guidance, or Interoperability Specifications, for three AHIC Use Cases - Consumer Empowerment, Biosurveillance and EHRs. The FHA will facilitate federal participation in the Interoperability Specifications Inspection Testing process to validate the quality and usability of the specification.

Interoperability Specifications will:

• Identify standards and specific implementation context for endorsed standards
• Describe specific value sets for unambiguous data exchange and system-to-system interaction
• Provide the necessary instructions to implement the specific standards in commercial and customized systems

Description of diagram: This diagram shows that several components make up Interoperability Specification, which is represented by a cylinder. This diagram shows two-way input on the left and right sides of the cylinder and bi-directional flow through the cylinder. There is a cut-away section in the cylinder which reveals components such as vocabulary and messaging standards. Components inside the cylinder are Specific Standards-based Terms, Request/Transmission Structure, System Handshake, Transport, Authentication & Security, and Connectivity.

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