Healthcare – Standards, Interoperability, and Testing

Welcome to the NIST Healthcare Information Technology Standards, Interoperability and Testing project website. The NIST Systems Interoperability Group develops and maintains a suite of productivity tools and conformance test tools which are used widely in the industry to improve efficiency, reliability, and lowers the cost of healthcare information technology systems.

This site provides an overview of the NIST Health IT Standards Testing Infrastructure , EHR Certification, access to NIST productivity and testing tools, and NIST publications on conformance, interoperability, and testing. 

Key Initiatives

Productivity Platform: Suite of software tools that assists stakeholders in the development of healthcare data exchange interoperability specifications, test cases, and conformance testing tools.

Conformance Testing Tools: Suite of software tools that measure and test healthcare information technology systems conformance to healthcare data exchange standards.

Standards and Interoperability: Providing technical guidance and documents for improving requirement specification of healthcare data exchange interoperability standards.

Data Quality: Providing technical guidance and software tools for analyzing and improving data quality in healthcare information technology systems data.

Key Impacts

• improving healthcare data exchange standards,
• promoting interoperability,
• improving data quality,
• providing tools for conducting conformance testing,
• providing tools for conducting functional systems testing,

All resulting in improve efficiency, reliability, and patient safety, in addition to lowering costs and improved patient outcomes.

Why NIST

NIST is a trusted third-party neutral arbitrator with experience and expertise in standards development and measurement techniques.
 

Health IT Testing Infrastructure

NIST Responsibilities for the development of the core health IT testing infrastructure and the Objectives of the Health IT Testing Infrastructure Project.

ONC Certification

Information about NIST development and maintenance of the conformance test methods (Normative Test Process Documents and Test Tools) that promote alignment with the CMS EHR Meaningful Use/Promoting Interoperability Program technical requirements and standards.

Conformance Test Tools

NIST currently leads significant test tool development efforts within the healthcare industry providing testing support in the following areas:

• Clinical Document Architecture (CDA)
• HL7 v2
• Cross Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS)
• Medical Devices

Publications & Presentations

A list of Publications and Presentations which provide details around healthcare information information technology conformance and interoperability testing.