About Nictiz
Nictiz is the competence centre for digital information management in healthcare.
We develop and maintain standards for digital information management, ensuring that healthcare information can be recorded and exchanged in an unambiguous manner.
In addition, we have an advisory function and share knowledge about digital information management in healthcare, focusing not only on the Netherlands, but on international developments as well.
What we do
Our objective is to ensure that healthcare information can be recorded and exchanged in an unambiguous manner, because the availability of healthcare information is essential for effective patient care. We focus not only on the Netherlands, but on international developments as well. Collaboration is crucial for proper information management. We have an extensive national and international network of healthcare organisations, umbrella organisations, IT suppliers and policy-makers, that we can call on to assist you with your specific issue, joining forces for better health through better information.
In a nutshell
- We are committed to developing a vision for the healthcare information system and the architecture supporting that system.
- We develop and maintain national standards.
- We offer advice and share knowledge.
- We participate in national and international interoperability projects.
Our standards make digital information exchange possible. Our Uniformity of Language and Technology approach enables you to record healthcare information in a structured, unambiguous manner. This benefits patients as well as healthcare professionals, for example in terms of more accurate diagnoses, improved patient safety and reduced administrative burden due to data reuse.
What drives us
We believe that appropriate availability of healthcare information plays a vital role in improving people’s health. That is why we make every effort to provide standards and solutions that can be implemented and applied.
We cannot do this on our own; collaboration with stakeholders in the healthcare sector is essential.
Our motto: better health through better information!
Director
Leonique Niessen has been at the helm of Nictiz since the end of 2019.
Under her leadership and that of the management team, Nictiz continues to grow as a professional competence centre committed to better information management for patient care, quality improvement, and research and innovation: better health through better information.
The power of Nictiz as a collaborating partner
Expertise
We are the competence centre for digital information management in healthcare.
Extensive network
We have an extensive national and international network consisting of policy-makers, umbrella organisations and healthcare providers.
Independent position
We are an impartial organisation, serving the common good and acting in an independent capacity.
Knowledge
There is a vast body of knowledge about digital information management in healthcare. As a competence centre, Nictiz considers sharing this knowledge an important part of its mission. We are active internationally and provide independent expertise to various parties. In the interest of creating a lasting information system, we feel it is our responsibility to make this knowledge transparent and accessible, and to disseminate and develop it. It is our ambition to take the overall knowledge of digital healthcare information management in the Netherlands to a higher level.
Standards
In their daily practice, healthcare providers exchange digital medical information with each other and with their patients or clients. This brings a challenge when it comes to incorporating medical information from their colleagues into their own work processes. How do you ensure that this information ends up in the right place in the information system of a primary care physician, for example? And does the nurse understand the information from the medical specialist, and vice-versa? Standardisation is the key solution: the exchange of medical information can only be reliable when everyone speaks the same language.
A lasting healthcare information system
The current healthcare system is untenable; the main problems are capacity and affordability. There is a growing demand for healthcare and patients want to be involved in the decision-making process. We are moving towards appropriate care. This requires a different perspective on information management in healthcare. Availability of healthcare information is crucial in this context and requires careful planning. Nictiz works with healthcare stakeholders to implement this vision and the necessary architecture.
Appropriate care & data availability
Nictiz wants to help accelerate and improve information management and availability of healthcare information. This also includes secondary use of data for quality improvement, innovation and research. The OECD report, the draft of the European Regulation European Health Data Space and the Wegiz (Dutch Act on electronic data exchange in healthcare) have made this objective more relevant than ever.
Appropriate care is becoming increasingly important as well: digital care where needed or preferred, the right (value-driven) care in the right place, and prevention. This also affects the social and municipal domains. Nictiz contributes to increased interoperability between these sectors.
Architecture
Countless users of the healthcare system use all kinds of information in all kinds of different situations. This requires many different types of agreements with various general and special specifications, which are then used to design and build different systems for all those users. The function of architecture is to ensure that this complex interplay of planning and implementation is and remains effective, lasting, flexible and reliable.
The healthcare information system overflows with data. This information is varied and is used and exchanged by many different users in a wide range of situations. Proper management of all this information requires numerous agreements with special and general specifications (standards). These standards are used to design and build information systems for all those users in their different situations. We use architecture to ensure that this complex interplay of planning and implementation is and remains effective, lasting, flexible and reliable.
System planning
The purpose of system planning is to create healthcare-wide agreements, for example about the use of generic standards such as HCIMs and the use of interface formats for information exchange, such as HL7 FHIR or HL7 CDA.
Another important function of system planning is to generate involvement and commitment on the part of relevant stakeholders in the field.
Lasting release policy
In 2022 we started the development of a lasting release policy. This policy will help us professionalise our own procedures, enabling us to use our experience more effectively to help stakeholders make a qualitative contribution to the standardisation process.
Interoperability
Having access to the right information at the right time is important in healthcare. To make this happen, healthcare providers from different organisations must be able to record and digitally exchange healthcare information in an unambiguous manner. In other words: interoperability. A challenge, because each healthcare organisation is different. How can we work together towards increased interoperability in healthcare?
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