Today is the day we in the U.S. are celebrating World Standards Day 2017! And the theme this year is “Smart Health.” The celebration is led by ANSI, our U.S. standards “umbrella” organization. And fittingly, this year’s activities are being sponsored by AAMI, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation.
Every year at this time, ANSI hold a series of meetings in Washington DC to gather standards professionals and other interested parties together. Topics are presented to address the specific concerns of standards developers, users, and other in the ANSI standards community. The culmination of the week is the World Standards Day dinner. This provides a venue to recognize achievements by various stakeholders across the standards community.
A highlight of the evening is the presentation of the Ronald H. Brown Leadership award. This award honors an individual who has promoted standardization as a tool to eliminate global trade barriers. Other awards include the winner of the World Standards Day Paper competition. Additional honors provide a national platform for service recognition, not normally available in other gatherings.
The topic, Smart Health, is a great one for World Standards Day 2017. We’re seeing rapid advances in the use of mobile communication platforms in a number of areas. One feature of this “new world” is the merging of technologies in ways that challenge the standards communities focus on inter-connectivity. Certainly the healthcare and medical device industries are in the lead when it comes to using new platforms and capabilities. AAMI has been an active player at both the national and international arenas to promote development of standards that benefit both industry and the public at large.
One thing that I’ve always appreciated about the World Standards Day dinner is the visibility of standards participants across industry and government. The evening truly highlights the universal value of standardization for our national and global communities. Standards are critical to both our economic well-being and our public safety. Hurray for a day to celebrate the service the standards community provides to us.
