The Women of Healthcare Standards

Maria Palombini, a leader at the IEEE Standards Association, discusses the work of four high-profile women in healthcare standards creation – and highlights what women bring to the process.

Palombini offers an in-depth look at four high-profile women in health IT who are contributing significantly to creating and promoting healthcare standards: Heather Flannery, CEO of ConsenSys Health and chair of the HIMSS Blockchain Task Force; Dr. Madhuri Gore, professor and tech director at the Dr. S.R. Chandrasekhar Institute of Speech and Hearing; Florence Hudson, CEO of FDHint and executive director of the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub at Columbia University; and Dr. Ida Sim, professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco and co-director of informatics and research innovation at UCSF's Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. A. Heather Leigh Flannery serves as the chair of IEEE P2418.6: Standard for the Framework of Distributed Ledger Technology Use in Healthcare and the Life and Social Sciences. The working group chair may be appointed by the IEEE Standards Committee or elected by the working group members. As an early mover in this field, this standard will provide a common framework for distributed ledger technology usage, implementation and interaction in healthcare and the life and social sciences, addressing scalability, security and privacy challenges. First, it is to provide a common semantic model and framework for the usage of blockchain and DLT in healthcare and the life and social sciences, under which a body of detailed, complementary standards specific to myriad niche use-cases can be subsequently developed. Second, it is to clarify and rationalize the use of DLT in healthcare and the life and social science in concert with converging innovations relevant to the sector, including, but not limited to, the family of artificial intelligence and the internet of medical things, delivering healthcare-specific coordination of these adjacent-standards activities. A. Dr. Madhuri Gore is the vice chair of IEEE P2650 – Standard for Enabling Mobile Device Platforms to Be Used as Pre-Screening Audiometric Systems. A. Florence Hudson chairs the working group for IEEE P2933: Standard for Clinical Internet of Things Data and Device Interoperability with TIPPSS - Trust, Identity, Privacy, Protection, Safety, Security. Florence originally initiated this work as a pre-standards incubation activity under the IEEE SA Global Wearables and Medical IoT Interoperability and Intelligence Program. As the author, submitter and original leader of this incubation activity, the IEEE Standards Committee and working group members supported Florence as the chair of this working group. This standard, the first under development in partnership with Underwriters Laboratories, will establish the framework with Trust, Identity, Privacy, Protection, Safety, Security principles for clinical internet of things data and device validation and interoperability. A. Dr. Sim serves as chair of IEEE 1752.1™-2021: Standard for Mobile Health Data. Sim is the author and submitter of the PAR for the IEEE 1752.1 standard and now just approved IEEE P1752.2 standards working group.