Health Domain Working Group

Overview

The OGC Health DWG enables OGC to identify and work with a representative group of market participants in the identification and prioritization of use cases, business and technical requirements that will provide the most significant value, or mitigate the most significant risks in this arena.

Project Scope

Through efforts to identify requirements, gaps in standards and opportunities for demonstration, a Health Domain Working Group will contribute to development of open mapping standards in support of health marketplace requirements. Through bringing together geospatial vendors and end-users, an OGC Health Domain Working Group will cultivate technical solutions which support interoperable concepts, data definitions, formats and services for publishing, search, and exchange of geospatial information.

Background

The Health Domain Working Group (DWG) is poised to address critical interoperability requirements to bolster health surveillance and response capabilities. By harnessing open mapping standards, the DWG aims to facilitate access to a distributed network of geospatial data, relevant to diseases, their vectors, and populations at risk. The World Health Organization has emphasized the necessity for systematic monitoring of environmental health determinants, with a focus on reducing vulnerability and mitigating risks associated with infectious and vector-borne diseases. Moreover, the group is dedicated to developing and supporting communication strategies and market research that promote the uptake of OGC standards and technologies within the health sector, including integration into National Health Information Systems.

The DWG also concentrates on supporting cross-border surveillance for health risks, modeling and response initiatives, and advancing best practices for the visualization of chronic and infectious diseases, alongside pertinent environmental and socioeconomic data. This effort is critical for enhancing epidemiology, surveillance, control, treatment, prevention, and educational undertakings. In addition to these efforts, the DWG is committed to exchanging best practices for maintaining privacy and security of health information while enabling permission-based access. Collaboration with other standards development organizations (SDOs) is a key activity, aimed at harmonizing various health and geospatial data standards. Furthermore, the group is engaged in developing best practices for use cases involving climate impacts on public health, with a strong emphasis on creating interoperable interfaces for health and climate models that safeguard personal health information privacy.

Activities

This Working Group plays a multifaceted role in bringing together both members and non-members involved in the health domain to engage in a collaborative environment. The group’s activities encompass building technical capacity, facilitating knowledge exchange, and leading efforts in requirements gathering and prioritization to address the needs of the health community. A significant part of their work involves assimilating inputs for the development of geospatial standards, including the establishment of data definitions, formats, and services that enhance the publishing, discovery, exchange, and queryability of geospatial information in health-related fields.

The DWG also zeroes in on specific health sub-domains where the application of geospatial data and interoperability is critical, ensuring that these areas receive the focused attention necessary for advancement. They are instrumental in initiating and guiding Demonstration Projects, Interoperability Experiments, and Interoperability Pilots, showcasing the practical applications of geospatial standards in health. In addition to these projects, the DWG dedicates effort to educating and informing health communities of practice, providing them with the insights and tools needed to integrate geospatial technologies into their workflows, thereby enhancing the overall effectiveness of health services and interventions.

Partners

The DWG will also collaborate with other OGC Working Groups such as the Geoscience DWG and Emergency and Disaster Management DWG and liaise with external groups including the World Health Organization and National and International Disease Surveillance Agencies.