Activities with PCHA（Personal Connected Health Alliance）

Points of cooperation

ECHONET Consortium and PCHA studied data linkage technologies for effective use of both parties’ data in web services based on a memorandum of understanding on collaboration concluded in October 2020.
By linking the “API” which handles home appliance and housing equipment data with the “HL7®FHIR®” Web API which handles health data, it will be possible to use it by individuals and their families at home as well as nursing care and other services in the regional comprehensive care network so that we aim to contribute to a more comfortable and healthy living environment such as use in pre-symptomatic care.

Aiming for a smooth and secure “Data linkage system”

With the cooperation of Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology on the technical side, we proceeded with prototyping and examining specifications while confirming feasibility.

ECHONET Consortium- Personal Connected Health Alliance Guidance on Data Linkages

“ECHONET Consortium- Personal Connected Health Alliance Guidance on Data Linkages” is a compilation of standard system for use in services such as healthy housing and direction of expansion of ECHONET Lite Web API specification so that ECHONET Consortium member companies can link ECHONET Lite device data and health data such as body temperature and blood pressure on the Internet.
“An Implementation Example of ECHONET Lite Web API In case of PCHA Data Linkage – Examples of ECHONET Lite Web API specifications” is a summary of specification examples for handling FHIR® compliant health data promoted by PCHA with ECHONET Lite Web API, based on the direction of ECHONET Lite Web API specification expansion presented in the guidance above.

Image of data linkage utilization between healthcare equipment and home appliances / housing equipment

“Healthcare equipment” for daily health checks and “home appliances and housing equipment” to help you live a more convenient life.
With the support of Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, ECHONET Consortium worked with PCHA on research to realize smooth and secure data linkage.
We made the video “Linkage between Healthcare Devices and Household Appliances”, which explains in an easy-to-understand manner the merits and system configurations of services that utilize data linkage (all in Japanese).

In addition, as part of joint research with ECHONET Consortium, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has created and released a Docker environment-based demo system. This demo system has been created according to the above example specifications. A caregiver, with the patient’s consent, can operate devices handled by the ECHONET Lite Web API-equipped server and access healthcare information handled by the FHIR-equipped server from the healthcare service app server via the ECHONET Lite Web API-equipped server. Please refer to README.md and procedure .pdf in the repository below. (all in Japanese)
https://github.com/txin-workspace/EL-FHIR-UMA-Demo

About PCHA（Personal Connected Health Alliance）

PCHA (Personal Connected Health Alliance) was established in 2006 as a global standardization organization for Connected Health, and its design guidelines have become the global standard as ITU-T H.810.