Sharing innovation: the case for technology standards in health professions education

Information technologies have provided fertile ground for innovation in healthcare education, but too often these innovations have been limited in scope and impact. One way of addressing these limitations is the development of common and open technology standards to scale innovation across organizational boundaries. Research on the diffusion of standards indicates that environmental forces, such as regulatory changes, top-down management support, and feasibility are key determinants of standards adoption. This paper describes the perspective and work of MedBiquitous, the only internationally recognized standards body in healthcare education. Many innovators are implementing MedBiquitous healthcare education standards to effect change within and across organizations. In a resource-constrained and knowledge intensive domain such as healthcare education, collaboration is an imperative. Technology standards are essential to raise the quality of healthcare education and assessment in a cost-effective manner.