Personal Connected Health Alliance Enhances Continua Test Tool, Enabling Authentic, Clinical-Grade Interoperability

ARLINGTON, VA, AUGUST 17, 2017 -- The Personal Connected Health Alliance (PCHAlliance) today announced it has approved a new Continua Test Tool (CTT), adding in several new enhancements based on its Continua Design Guidelines. The Continua Design Guidelines and the new CTT continues to scale enabling authentic clinical-grade interoperability and now includes chronic disease remote monitoring for diabetes care, hypertension, heart failure and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The Continua Test Tool helps PCHAlliance members achieve Continua Certification for their products ensuring that their data is clearly understood within an electronic health record (EHR).

"Our Test and Certification Committee has done an excellent job advancing the resources and materials available to PCHAlliance members seeking Continua Certification for their products," said Michael J. Kirwan, Vice President, Continua. "We will continue to enhance our Continua Test Tool in the coming months, and encourage PCHAlliance members to take advantage of the full range of resources available, including the new Test Tool, test labs, Plugfest test events and Continua Certification Experts (CCEs) who assist companies with the Certification process."

The new Continua Test Tool will include new test case implementations for IEEE 11073-10427 Power Status Monitor, Bluetooth Low Energy Pulse-Oximeter and Continuous Glucose Monitoring device specializations and profiles. The CTT will soon be updated to support Windows 10 as well as both the Continua Health Information Services and for HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources).

“The CTT is PCHAlliance-approved to cover the necessary test cases to attain Continua Certification. It is important that PCHAlliance makes the CTT readily available for members to pretest during product development and verification, so that we have assurance that the release candidate will pass Continua Certification.” said Kelvin Lim, Roche Diabetes Care, a PCHAlliance Global Member company; and Chair, PCHAlliance Test and Certification Committee.

Continua certification encompasses well over a hundred different types of devices and services that can be certified today. Certification is available to PCHAlliance members interested in certifying a device or service to ensure clinical-grade interoperability with other Continua devices and services, and enables the convenient collection and exchange of health data for improved health, wellness and disease management. Continua Certified products carry a recognizable logo signifying clinical-grade interoperability with other Continua Certified products. Any organization that develops a health, medical or fitness product can certify to the Continua Design Guidelines by following the certification process. This includes hundreds of health, medical and fitness device types, all with a direct path to the EHR.

PCHAlliance publishes the Continua Design Guidelines, which define an open, flexible framework for exchanging health data between personal connected health devices and systems, and standardize medical-grade data for integration into clinical systems. The Guidelines are recognized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as an international standard for personal health systems. Standards underlying the Guidelines include the IEEE 11073 Personal Health Devices family of standards; Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) PCD-01 standards, and HL7 Personal Health Monitoring Report.

The Continua Design Guidelines comprise a reference architecture, product test and certification tools and services. By certifying products to the Continua Design Guidelines, companies opt in to the personal connected health economy and demonstrate their commitment to customers.

Personal Connected Health Alliance

The Personal Connected Health Alliance (PCHAlliance) aims to make health and wellness an effortless part of daily life. The PCHAlliance, a non-profit organization formed by HIMSS, believes that health is personal and extends beyond healthcare. The Alliance mobilizes a coalition of stakeholders to realize the full potential of personal connected health. PCHAlliance members are a vibrant ecosystem of technology and life sciences industry icons and innovative, early stage companies along with governments, academic institutions, and associations from around the world. To support its vision, PCHAlliance convenes the global personal connected health community at the annual Connected Health Conference, the premier international event for the exchange of research, evidence, ideas, innovations and opportunities in personal connected health. The Alliance publishes and promotes adoption of the Continua Design Guidelines. Continua is recognized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as the international standard for safe, secure, and reliable exchange of data to and from personal health devices. PCHAlliance accelerates technical, business, policy and social strategies necessary to advance personal connected health through its Healthy Longevity initiative to promote lifelong health and wellness.