Section 1: Primary Standards
Section 1g: CCOW
Section 4: Rules and References
HL7 Context Management Specification (CCOW), Version 1.6
DESCRIPTION
This specification has been retired, and is being replaced by HL7 FHIRCast
Aimed at facilitating the integration of applications at the point of use, CCOW Context Management Specification is a standard for both internal applications programming and runtime environment infrastructure that complements Health Level Seven International's traditional emphasis on data interchange and enterprise workflow. By synchronizing and coordinating applications to automatically follow the patient, user (and other) contexts, CCOW serves as the basis for ensuring secure and consistent access to patient information from heterogeneous sources. Through this context management, software applications development suppliers can enable the clinical user's experience is similar to one of interacting with a single system, when in fact he or she might be using multiple, independent applications from many different systems, each via its native user interface. Healthcare facilities, particularly larger ones such as hospitals, having more than one system for clinical information see immense benefits with CCOW.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
HL7 Context Management Specification (CCOW), Version 1.6 may also go by the following names or acronyms:
TARGETS
- Healthcare facilities with more than one IT systems for clinical information
- Hospitals with more than one system for clinical information
- Suppliers of IT applications for Healthcare facilities
BENEFITS
- Intuitive access to the entire breadth and depth of clinical information
- Elimination of repetitive duplicate input to each active application
- Applications are easier to use
- Increases utilization of electronically available information
- Increases patient safety
- Enables highly secure single sign-on solutions
- Provides a basis for addressing HIPAA requirements
IMPLEMENTATIONS/CASE STUDIES
- Duke University, VA
- McKesson
- Various countries
DEVELOPMENT BACKGROUND
CCOW was developed largely at Duke University to address the problem of using sixty different systems. Rob Seliger, Sentillion and the Andover Working Group, an HP initiative, mostly developed the standard outside of HL7 and petitioned to come into HL7 and merge CCOW with the then active Andover Working Group. The CCOW Work Group became a part of HL7 after starting out as an independent healthcare industry consortium. (The name CCOW is an acronym of this consortium Clinical Context Object Workgroup. In a short time, the committee has developed and ratified five versions of the CCOW Standard. This unprecedented pace has been, in part, due to the modular component- based nature of the architecture upon which the standard is based, enabling new specifications to be developed in a complementary and add-on manner. CCOW's Context Management Architecture (CMA) was founded on the principle that common context can be established across applications by identifying things, such as the current patient context, or clinical encounter context in a manner that different applications can nevertheless recognize. The core architecture is comprised of three main types of components: the set of active applications; a context manager that coordinates and synchronizes applications; and mapping agents that can represent the various synonymous real-world identifiers used to identify clinical patients, users, etc. The architecture defines the roles and responsibilities for each of these components and precisely prescribes the interfaces that enable them to communicate. The architecture does not define or dictate the implementation of any of the components.
RELATED DOCUMENTS
HL7 Context Management Specification (CCOW), Version 1.6 |
(Download) (4.19 MB) |
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CCOW Best Practices | (View Brief) |
(Download) (188 KB) |
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CCOW Test Cases | (View Brief) |
(Download) (371 KB) |
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Context Management Specifications (CCOW) V 1.0 | (View Brief) | ||
Context Management Specifications (CCOW) V 1.1 | (View Brief) |
(Download) (1.21 MB) |
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Context Management Specifications (CCOW) V 1.2 | (View Brief) |
(Download) (1.94 MB) |
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Context Management Specifications (CCOW) V 1.3 | (View Brief) |
(Download) (1.65 MB) |
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Context Management Specifications (CCOW) V 1.4 | (View Brief) |
(Download) (1.76 MB) |
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Context Management Specifications (CCOW) V 1.5 | (View Brief) |
(Download) (4.05 MB) |
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Recommendations for HL7 Messaging Over Component Technologies (1998) | (View Brief) |
(Download) (1.46 MB) |
TOPIC
- CCOW
BALLOT TYPE
- Normative
STATUS DATE
2021-09-10RESPONSIBLE WORK GROUPS
FAMILY
- CCOW
CURRENT STATE
- Retired
REALM
- Universal