Joint Initiative Council for Global Health Informatics Standardization


The Joint Initiative Council for Global Health Informatics Standardization (JIC) is formed to further the important role of health informatics standards to:

» Enable interoperability of information and processes across health domains;

» Support the timely, efficient delivery of safe, coordinated, accountable, high-quality health services to individuals, communities and populations;

» Facilitate effective global markets for health information systems.


The JIC recognizes:

» The demand for more organized, collaborative and efficient approaches to health informatics standards development that deliver a more coherent, comprehensive, and coordinated set of readily implementable health informatics standards;

» The importance of consistency across health informatics standards and the need for collaboration in their development to ensure semantic interoperability across health processes and between health information systems;

» That health informatics standardization is supported by a community of experts that works within and across various health informatics standards development organizations (SDOs).


The mission of the JIC is to work effectively in accordance with its Charter to:

» promote interoperability and seek to avoid overlaps and inconsistencies between standards used in health informatics;

» achieve greater coordination and consistency of health informatics standards development;

» develop global awareness of the importance and potential contribution of health informatics standards;

» share information transparently on opportunities and needs for health informatics standardization;

» provide a gateway to support and provide advice on health informatics standards collaboration and for reporting progress toward achieving a coherent set of standards for health informatics; and

» promote the development, adoption and recognition of relevant health informatics standards as international standards.


In pursuing this mission, the JIC is guided by the following core values:

» being customer focused – engaging with customers, meeting business requirements and producing results that benefit the global consumers of health informatics standards;

» facilitating the work of experts that participate in developing standards;

» a spirit of openness and transparency - sharing information and plans, seeking opportunities for collaboration, and fostering joint activity;

» flexibility and willingness to utilize and leverage the work of others;

» promoting innovation, best practices, quality improvement and risk management; and

» respecting the expertise, mandates, structures, operations, interests and boundaries of its members and other health informatics standards developers.


The members of the JIC are encouraged to:

» seek opportunities to work closely with other members and entities to promote harmonization of health informatics standards and to avoid overlapping, counter-productive and counteracting standards;

» establish and maintain active formal liaisons and collaborative arrangements with members and other entities that develop or support the use of standards in various health domains and across different technology platforms;

» maintain processes for critical review and evaluation of standards proposals to ensure that they are relevant to business requirements and are likely to produce results that are aligned with other standards and benefit the global consumers of health informatics standards; and

» share experiences and capabilities with other members of the JIC to advance collaboration and the state-of-the-art in global health informatics standardization.


The JIC is not a legal entity, does not have its own resources (other than those made available by its members) and does not have the power to develop or publish standards in its own right.


Current members of the JIC (in alphabetical order) are CDISC, CEN/TC 251, DICOM, GS1, HL7 International, IHE International, ISO/TC251, LOINC, and SNOMED International. Other SDOs may be invited to participate as appropriate to the work and domain of the JIC and that meet specific criteria as identified in the Charter of the JIC.

The set of standards “International Patient Summary” has gained in accessibility through its dedicated website.

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