scope:

This standard defines an object-oriented abstract information model to represent a PHD and the observations generated by a PHD. It specifies what information needs to be present and the relationships between the informational elements in the model. It models observations in a generic way by focusing on the information content contained in the presentation of health measurements. The modeling follows the practice of ISO/IEEE 11073-20601 [B12] where Unified Modeling Language (UML) is used to describe a set of objects and the relationship between the objects.⁷ Tables provide descriptions of the attributes in the objects. IEEE 11073-10101™ nomenclature terms are used to express clinical content.⁸ This standard provides guidance as to what an exchange protocols needs to communicate to properly represent health observations, but is not, in itself, sufficient to be an exchange protocol. However, the content model defined herein does have sufficient detail to help organizations validate that there is no loss of the semantic content induced by data exchanges in a protocol adhering to this standard. This standard does not define a security framework.

Purpose

This standard supports an ecosystem in which PHDs use the nomenclature and dictionary of IEEE 11073™. When the IEEE nomenclature is used it helps to ensure that data communicated by PHDs is clearly understood and useable by health professionals as well as intelligent systems in the wider digital health ecosystem. In ISO/IEEE 11073-20601 [B12], which uses the IEEE 11073 nomenclature, the information model is integrated with an optimized data exchange mechanism. This standard seeks to establish a new, simplified information model that is independent of data exchange (such as physical or transport layer) dependencies. Further it seeks to reduce the breadth of objects and attributes in the information model based on implementation experience gained over the past ten years.

⁷ The numbers in brackets correspond to those of the bibliography in Annex A.

⁸ Information on references can be found in Clause 2.