In order for the common concept conventions describing the EHR to benefit the healthcare practitioner and healthcare enterprises, they must be implemented within products and services offered to the market.  It is important for the viewer to understand the numerous aspects that influence how this happens. It requires cooperation from the healthcare professional disciplines that will benefit, as well as from the Standards Developer Organizations that facilitate the creation of the common conventions (standards) used for the conceptual content. Also required is that the implementation process adheres to best recommended practices in order to yield quality, interoperable products. This segment of the EHR Web site probes the dimensions about how these factors have affected the systems now available in the market and how Acquirers should plan to use them.

The issue of education about the EHR is even more critical to beneficial use than the development of common conventions (Standards) for its conceptual content and its implementing technologies. Up to the present time there has been no coordinated effort among the healthcare professional specialty disciplines to identify a “Core Body of Knowledge” relating to the full Healthcare Information Domain - a “Guide to the Healthcare Informatics Body of Knowledge - HIBOK” that encompasses three main axes (conceptual content manifested in data structure and data representation, implementation, patient care and resource management) [see Figure] that encompasses such a HIBOK Domain. The implementation dimension intersects the already well developed “Software Engineering Body of Knowledge - SWEBOK” (See: http://www.swebok.org) by the Software Engineering and Computer Science professional disciplines. The IEEE-CS/ACM  web site calls attention to the essential collaborative effort needed to bring Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to benefit healthcare. This EHR Web site further develops those activities needed to collect information about the needed informatics Knowledge Areas for healthcare professional disciplines and how to draw on the work of the SWEBOK Project. In documenting the HIBOK Core that should underpin the development of curricula in the healthcare professional schools and continuing education programs, not only the Implementing Engineering Knowledge Areas but also the Conceptual Content Knowledge Areas must be considered such that the intended meaning of the healthcare concepts is implemented in ways that truly benefit the practitioner who is serving patients. This section of the EHR Implementation Segment of the Web site develops the critical educational activities that must be addressed and how they affect implemented EHR systems.