OpenECG: Medical device interoperability as a quality label for ehealth services

Personal medical devices proliferate as emerging eHealth consumers -chronic patients and health conscious citizens- use them regularly to monitor their health. In the quest for quality and performance, plug- interoperability of medical devices is a quality label for electronic health records (EHRs) and eHealth systems that effectively collect, process, and analyze medical data. However implementing standards typically involves additional costs, and unless widely implemented, standards do not guarantee interoperability. The OpenECG network aims to bridge the gap between standards on paper and their implementations promoting the practice of interoperability in electrocardiography. This paper reports on recent developments in ECG interoperability that involve OpenECG, focusing on SCP- ECG conformance testing, the pending amendment to the SCP-ECG standard, and harmonization efforts between HL7v3 aECG and SCP-ECG. The expert network of OpenECG combined with its open-source tools and free services, support ECG manufacturers and integrators in realizing ECG interoperability standards and creating robust peer-reviewed eHealth systems.