scope:

This International standard defines a system of concepts for different aspects of the provision of healthcare. The concepts aim to support the continuity of care in healthcare and clinical processes. An additional aim is to enable the reuse of clinical information for other purposes such as secondary use for follow-up and knowledge management. The general aim for this standard is to provide a comprehensive, conceptual basis for content and context in healthcare services. It should be the foundation for interoperability at all levels in healthcare organizations and for development of information systems in healthcare. The core business in healthcare is the interaction between subjects of care and healthcare professionals. Such interactions occur in healthcare and clinical processes and are the justification for the process approach of this standard. To be able to represent both clinical content and clinical context, this standard is based upon a generic clinical process model as well as comprehensive concept definitions and concept models for the clinical, management and resource aspects of healthcare services. In practice this standard should be used whenever information in healthcare is specified as a requirement. This will cover all levels of specifications in the development of:- - business or clinical reference models as a common basis for interoperability on international, national or local levels; - information systems and - information for specified types of clinical processes. The performance of any specific healthcare and clinical processes, healthcare research processes and healthcare educational processes are not covered in this standard.