ANN ARBOR, MI – The healthcare industry reached a milestone Monday in its goal to exchange clinical records electronically. Health Level Seven announced that the Continuity of Care Document was approved by ballot and that it received the endorsement of the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel.

HL7 said the final Continuity of Care Document (CCD) would be published next month. It will describe how to implement the Continuity of Care Record dataset with the standard architecture for clinical records developed by HL7, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based standard setting body.

Development of the CCD represents the joint efforts of HL7 and the E31 Healthcare Informatics Committee of ASTM International, which had led efforts to develop a standardized continuity of care record.

The CCD was approved through balloting by HL7 in January, and the organization has been responding to comments it received in the balloting process, said Robert H. Dolin, MD, who works in the department of internal medicine for Kaiser Permanente and is the physician lead for terminology services for electronic health records.

The interoperability standard enables clinical data to be transportable, resulting in improved quality, enhanced patient safety and increased efficiency, HL7 executives say.

HL7 has been touting the use of its standards for clinical document architecture. ASTM separately developed the continuity of care record to provide a standardized and simple way to move information about patients’ clinical encounters from one provider to another.

Last year, the organizations agreed to work together since their standards were complementary. The Clinical Care Document describes the use of the CCR standard dataset so it could function within the broader capabilities of HL7’s clinical document architecture, Dolin said.

The endorsement by HITSP recognizes the successful harmonization of the two sets of standards, HL7 said, recognizing that the standard can be used to send electronic medical information among providers without loss of meaning. Clinical information that can be exchanged includes patient demographic data, medications and allergy information.

“This demonstrates what can be achieved when patient care is the driving priority,” said Dolin, who is the co-editor of the CCD specification and an HL7 board member.

The document resulting from the representation and mapping of CCR data will “help drive the use of structured XML standards for clinical information exchange and the improvement of patient safety, quality and efficiency,” said Richard Peters, MD, chair of ASTM’s International Committee E31 on Healthcare Informatics.