Accreditation
Accreditation process
The ITK accreditation process has been designed to be very straightforward and deliberately light touch, focusing very much on demonstrating technical conformance of the ITK interface against the relevant specifications and standards.
In order to receive accreditation, a vendor must demonstrate the technical conformance of their product with the ITK requirements by submitting evidence of this conformance to CFH for review. This will be achieved through use of the ITK Testbench, along with completion of the Certification of Compliance to ITK requirements spreadsheets, and by providing supporting evidence. All of the relevant guidance documents, compliance spreadsheets and testing tools are available for download via TRUD.
The ITK accreditation documentation includes guidance, which describes what constitutes the appropriate level of test evidence; this test evidence can of course be supplemented by vendor specific interface tests where appropriate. Submission to the Technology office of a successful set of validation reports generated by the ITK Testbench, completed Certification of Compliance spreadsheets, and supporting evidence, such as message captures, will be required as part of a vendor's submission to successfully complete the process.
Where a vendor has a product with an existing Spine compliance certificate, we will require written confirmation that the changes made for ITK do not impact the Spine interfaces. Where these interfaces are impacted, the supplier will be asked to follow the existing NHS Connecting for Health compliance process with which they will already be familiar. An ITK extension has been added to this process.
Successful vendors will be eligible for inclusion in the ITK Compliant Solutions catalogue where vendor and application details will be published.
Release Support
Following the successful launch of ITK Release 2.0 in July 2011, we have received an increased level of interest from the supplier community who are considering seeking ITK accreditation. Release 2.0 builds on the previous release (1.1), providing improved modularisation, support for more complex implementation scenarios and support for correspondence.
We continue to welcome interest from suppliers seeking to implement ITK based solutions in their products and provide support to help them become ITK accredited. From 14th November 2011, all new requests for accreditation and support will need to be against Release 2.0 as we no longer provide accreditation or support services for Releases 1.0 or 1.1.
Further Guidance
If you would like more information or guidance on seeking accreditation, or have any specific questions regarding moving from a previous release to Release 2.0, please contact the ITK Accreditation Mailbox.