ITK the Bigger Picture

Work has recently focused on fully integrating the ITK into the wider interoperability architecture for the NHS as a whole.

Objectives of this architecture include:

• Supporting flexibility and local innovation – with centrally provided standards and components acting as an enabler to this
• Simplifying barriers to entry – in particular by use of a maturity-based approach which allows initial benefits to be realised more quickly
• Connect All – ensuring sufficient consistency and standardisation to ensure isolated silos do not develop
• Evolution and Reuse – building on what is already in place, both centrally and in terms of existing locally deployments

The ITK plays a key role in providing consistent technical standards for interoperability within a community. This consistency helps to promote sharing of best practice between communities, as well as ensuring that the NHS continues to operate as a National market from a supplier perspective.

For example, it is important that applications developed within one community can be easily 'plugged in' and used within another.

The Interoperability Toolkit (ITK) is well positioned to fulfil this standardisation role – being based around open standards, flexible and rapid evolution, local ownership and responsibility for implementation, and a lightweight accreditation approach.

Key aspects of ITK R2 which support this intent include:

• Modularisation of specifications – to help support a wider range of local deployment scenarios. This includes the more explicit splitting of transport mechanisms into separate module(s) to provide potential for additional transport options to be added in future.
• Routing – an approach to addressing and routing which is intended to support more complex multi-hop and cross-organisational scenarios.
• Maturity-based approach – a step-by-step maturity model, particularly for CDA documents. This allows implementation to begin with simple binary attachments (eg TIFF images), and progress on an incremental basis to first structured and then fully-coded CDA documents.