Standards, test and certification

MedComs efforts to standardise and certify exchange of data within the healthcare sector and between different sectors ensure reuse, consistency and high quality in the data exchange which supports a coherent healthcare sector, working closely together every day.

MedCom standards

Through the years, MedCom has developed more than 150 standards, profiles and web services consisting of ‘the good letters’ which are all being used increasingly. At the same time, new standards are being developed, for instance discharge summaries, laboratory results, referrals and rehabilitation plans. All of them are implemented with IT vendors within the healthcare sector. MedCom’s standards secure that the various IT systems and organisations can reuse the data which is exchanged.

The increasing use requires a modernisation of the electronic health communication and of the standards that are used today. The communication must be efficient and with as little errors as possible. This is ensured when vendors and organisations go through a regular, homogenous and certified test procedure at MedCom’s test centre.

Modernisation of the MedCom communication

MedCom has developed standards since the 90s and has a legacy of EDIfact (international format) and OIOXML (Danish format) standards. In the coming years, MedCom is converting all its standards to HL7 FHIR and has already published the first FHIR standards on GITHUB: HospitalNotification, Acknowledgement and CareCommunication.

Along with the modernisation of MedCom’s standards, the infrastructure on which they are exchanged is also undergoing a transformation. We aim to build and implement a national combined messaging and data sharing infrastructure framework based on eDelivery components and FHIR services.

Quality assurance of test and certification of the IT systems ISO9001

The use of all MedCom’s standards and profiles must be correct to ensure that data is transferred and displayed correctly. MedCom’s standards are quality assured through a permanent test cycle, where all IT systems can be tested and verified. This means that a MedCom approved system can be used in the same way all over the country without separate tests being made.

Since 2017, MedCom’s quality management system for test and certification of Health Care IT vendors’ implementation of MedCom interoperable standards , has met the ISO9001:2015 requirements.

MedCom is the first European Competence Center to follow this ISO standard in the process for testing and certification of Health Care IT-systems resulting in high quality and uniform test and approval of systems.

MedCom’s quality management system is based on guidelines provided by the EU funded Antilope project of which MedCom was coordinator in 2013-2015. MedCom is proud and pleased to demonstrate that the results of international cooperation in an EU funded project can directly lead to improvements of MedCom’s procedures which will benefit the Danish healthcare system.