Open Standards as DPGs

[mgifford]

I'm at the EHRCon to learn more about OpenEHR and realized that they are also talking about public good and are inherently digital.

FHIR is mentioned here (another good health standard)
https://www.digitalpublicgoods.net/DPGA_Health-DPG-Technical-Assessment.pdf

There is a commitment to open standards, but how does an Open Standard become a DPG? Should it?

[AmreenTaneja]

Hi @mgifford thanks for sharing. FHIR is already a recognized standard under Indicator 8 of the DPG Standard. As we had mentioned in some of the earlier issues as well- while the DPGA is (not actively evaluating) specific standards as digital public goods at this time, we recognize standards play a critical role in ensuring interoperability and promoting an open digital ecosystem, making them a crucial element in defining a digital public good. The DPGA will promote the use of open standards by expanding our focus on indicator 8: “Adherence to Standards & Best Practices”. Open standards will remain a part of our list of requirements for new DPG applications, making them a critical component of DPGs but not DPGs in and of themselves.

[greggish]

I'm concerned about that interpretation of previous conversations, and this framing of whether standards are or are not public goods.

As I clarified in 126, it sounds like this particular project has made a decision that it does not have the programmatic capacity to assess standards as part of this particular set of resources that you are assessing and promoting. For all I know that is a valid tactical decision for the project to make. But there does seem to be general agreement that open standards are literally public goods; and we should not allow the project's constraints to indirectly result in definitional confusion.

[mgifford]

@AmreenTaneja from what I can see there are two DPGs that are related to FHIR - https://www.digitalpublicgoods.net/registry?term=FHIR

Neither of them is the standard https://www.fhir.org/

[ricardomiron]

@AmreenTaneja from what I can see there are two DPGs that are related to FHIR - https://www.digitalpublicgoods.net/registry?term=FHIR

Neither of them is the standard https://www.fhir.org/

Hi @mgifford, we indeed do NOT list individual standards in the DPG Registry, so you'll not find FHIR there. As Amreen mentioned, and with the context provided by @greggish, this was a decision we made not to do this because:

1. It makes more sense for the purpose of the DPG Registry to integrate open standards directly into the other categories as part of our requirements. We see this as a more appropriate approach, but open standards are still part of the definition of digital public goods, as mentioned by Greg.

2. Operationally and for practical reasons, we're not as equipped as well-established standard bodies to vet them. We're nevertheless always exploring how to give these standards more visibility and, of course, believe they are of very high relevance to and as DPGs.

FHIR is, for example, currently used by 25 software DPGs, but the main search box in the DPG Registry only pulls by name and description at the moment. We're introducing additional filters and enhancing search capabilities in the future, and all the standards used by any DPG are listed in their profile pages, as you know.