Letter to Health Level Seven on Electronic Delivery of a Laboratory Directory of Services (eDOS)
Dr. Charles Jaffe, M.D., Ph.D.
Health Level Seven, International
3300 Washtenaw Avenue, Suite 227
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
RE: American Clinical Laboratory Association Laboratory Test Compendium Framework
Dear Dr. Jaffe:
The American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) represents national, regional, and local laboratories that collectively have an extensive history of providing the nation’s hospitals and physicians with leading-edge health information technology (IT) to streamline the laboratory test requisition process and speed the delivery of test results.
A cross-functional ACLA workgroup has been working on the development of an industry standard framework for the electronic delivery of a Laboratory Directory of Services (eDOS) that will enhance interoperability as defined within the scope of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for health IT. Essentially, the industry standard will enable one or more clinical laboratories to automatically and remotely load, update, and maintain their eDOS electronically within the physician’s EMR system of choice.
ACLA delivered this product December 31, 2009 and provided for a public comment period from January 4, 2010 to March 19, 2010. A wide audience of healthcare professions provided over 100 comments. ACLA reviewed those comments making adjustments to the eDOS Implementation Guide (IG) and submitted additional change proposals to HL7 for version 2.8. The IG was developed based on HL7 version 2.6 and change proposals were early adopted to be included in the IG. We are very proud of this work, and as you know, the Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare Information Technology (ONC) has already started to promote eDOS.
ACLA will turn over its ownership of the eDOS IG to HL7, provided that ACLA continues to be recognized as the original developer. The IG represents ACLA’s best efforts to develop a comprehensive industry standard for eDOS and ACLA makes no warranties or representations beyond that which is set forth in the scope of the IG and as expressly set forth in this letter.
