Standards in health information technology: promise and challenges

Implementation of health information technology (HIT) can lead to improved quality of care, including improved guideline adherence, better surveillance and decreased medication errors. In the context of health information technology, computer-based clinical decision support (CDS) systems can improve clinician performance and reduce errors in practice. Indeed, the promise of electronic health records lies principally in the integration of patient data from diverse sources that enables clinicians to take action. While considerable work has been accomplished, the lack of widely agreed standards remains an impediment to the implementation to HIT generally and to clinical decision support in particular. This applies both to patient data as well as to clinical knowledge that might be applied to those data to assist clinicians in making decisions.