scope:

This Technical Specification establishes a common health indicators conceptual framework for the field of health informatics. It is intended to foster a common vocabulary and conceptual definitions for a framework which - defines the appropriate dimensions and subdimensions required to describe the health of the population and performance of a health care system, - is sufficiently broad (high-level) to accommodate a variety of health care systems, and - is comprehensive, encapsulating all of the factors that are related to health outcomes and health system performance and utilization, and regional and national variations. This Technical Specification does not identify or describe individual indicators or specific data elements for the health indicators conceptual framework. As a next step, it has been proposed that a subsequent work item address the metadata, or the characteristics and common attributes, of actual indicators that might be contained in the health indicators conceptual framework. The definition of benchmarks and/or approaches used in the definition of benchmarks is outside the scope of this Technical Specification.