Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for Public Health: Standard Development Organizations Perspectives

Over the past five years the United States has embarked on a systematic process aimed to accelerate the adoption of interoperable health information technology (HIT) applications under the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). Public Health is one of the health sectors that can benefit from the adoption of these applications. Over time, public health information systems have been developed as stand-alone (siloed) systems aimed at serving individual programs within local, state, and federal public health agencies, e.g., immunization registries, communicable disease registries, lead registries, etc. These program-specific information systems utilize varying data formats and customized software applications. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) offers a coordinated approach to achieve interoperability among HIT products. SOA offers a combination of services to individual IT applications, or a group of IT applications implemented within an organization. These services include identity resolution services, registry services, repository services, audit services, decision support services, information security services, etc. Various standard development and harmonization entities including Health Level Seven, Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise, Health Information Technology Standards Panel are working on harmonizing their standards and products in order to develop standardized SOA services. Use and reuse of these services by various applications will enable interoperability across different information systems. Standardized SOA services may be provided by the health information exchange organizations to enable seamless communication between clinical and public health systems involved in the exchange.