HL7/ISO TS 5615 Specification: Remote Connected Care and Mobile Health (RCC-MH) (Jira PSS-2577)

The COVID-19 pandemic created an enormous need to allow patients and clinicians to communicate with each other and report in a more flexible and virtual way outside of the traditional care delivery infrastructure.

Numerous studies and reports from healthcare organizations have shown the dramatic increase in the use of telehealth visits and their associated benefits:

- reduction of pandemic-related risks typically associated with face-to-face visits.

- alleviation of care capacity pressures due to pandemic-induced patient influx.

- stemming the tide of continually increasing healthcare costs driven by aging populations and associated growth of chronic disease.

- catering to patient preferences and enabling patients to stay in their home longer, return sooner, or manage their condition at home altogether.

Many healthcare organizations have gone beyond telehealth in an attempt to deploy remote care approaches to interact with patients in the hospital as well as track the status of patients at home or alternate care institutions. Such technologies are also used for clinical trial data collection, real-world evidence and patient surveillance, especially under the limitations and pressure of a pandemic. This is termed as 'Remote Connected Care and Mobile Health (RCC-MH)'.

This project explores the current challenges of deploying RCC-MH widely in the current environment. In addition to technical gaps, this project also identifies techno-social gaps that will need to be overcome. The question then becomes: how to educate and motivate manufacturers and ‘consumers’ (hospitals, alternate care settings, patients and their advocacy groups, etc.) so they understand the benefits of interoperability and, since RCC-MH will not be realizable without interoperability, begin to demand interoperable devices and apps that take advantage of interoperable devices.