The purpose of this Technical Specification is to define the basic principles needed to securely preserve
health records in any format for the long term. It concentrates on previously documented healthcare-specific
archiving problems. It also gives a brief introduction to general archiving principles. Unlike the traditional
approach to standardization work, where the perspective is that of modelling, code sets and messages, this
Technical Specification looks at archiving from the angle of document management and related privacy
protection. The document management angle has traditionally been used in connection with patient records in
paper form and it can also be applied to digitally stored documents. There are different architectural and
technical ways to develop and implement long-term preservation of electronic health records. Archiving can be
a function of the online record-keeping system, and we can have a separate independent archive or a
federated one. Electronic health records are, in many cases, archived in the form of documents, but other
technical solutions also exist.
In this Technical Specification archiving is understood to be a wider process than just the permanent
preservation of selected records. Archiving of EHRs is a holistic process covering records maintenance,
retention, disclosure and destruction when the record is not in active use. Archiving also includes tasks the
EHR system should perform before the record is sent to the EHR-archive.
This Technical Specification defines architecture and technology-independent security requirements for the
long-term preservation of EHRs having fixed content.