PCD Process

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Overview

The Patient Care Device Domain is structured as a set of committees including the Co-Chair Committee, the Planning and Technical Committees and a set of ad-hoc Working Committees. This document covers governance issues such as voting, participation, etc. in these groups. In general all activity needs to comply with the IHE Governance Agreement IHE Governance.


OPEN ITEM: Showcase Ancillary Equipment Policy

PCD Committee Types

The PCD has 3 different committee types:

  • Steering Committees such as the Co-Chair Committee
  • Governance Committees such as the Planning Committee and Technical Committee
  • Working Committees which are working groups focused on a specific task such as developing a Technical Framework or Profile Proposal.

Steering Committees

The PCD Co-Chair committee is the only PCD Steering Committee. Its membership consists of voting and non-voting members. The voting members include the 2 elected co-chairs of the Planning Committee and the 2 elected co-chairs of the Technical Committee. The non-voting members include the Project Manager and the representative(s) of the Sponsoring Organization(s). Decisions can only be made if a quorum of 3 members is present. Approval of a decision requires 3 co-chairs of which a majority (2) must approve. Voting is verbal or via Webex .

Governance Committees

There are 2 PCD Governance Committees, the Planning Committee and the Technical Committee, which consist of IHE Member Organizations interested in participating and monitoring the work of the PCD Domain. Rules for voting in these committess follow the IHE Governance and are outlined in more detail below.

Non-members may be invited to attend meetings, but this should be for a short time and they should be encouraged to become members. They should be advised that they need to abide by the same rules as established in Appendix A (i.e. regarding Intellectual Property) of the IHE Governance Agreement.

Working Committees

Working Committees are created to address specific tasks and are then disbanded when their objectives have been achieved. These groups generally fall into two types:

  • Working Group: Chartered to develop a specific IHE PCD work item such as a technical framework profile or white paper
  • Task Group: Focuses on specific issues or activities in support of the IHE PCD work program.

Examples include the RTM WG, Connectathon and Showcase TG, ACM WG, Vent Terminology TG and ICE-PAC WG.

These committees can consist of both experts from IHE Member Organizations and subject matter experts that are not from IHE Member Organizations. In general these committees generate specific work products by consensus. If consensus is not achieved the issues are brought to the appropriate Governance Committee where the topic is discussed and a decision is reached based on that Committee's voting procedures. In addition finished work products from the Working Committees are brought to the appropriate Governance Committee for distribution and final approval by member voting. While committee experts who come from IHE Member Organizations are bound by the IHE Governance rules on Intellectual Property, experts from non-members must also be advised that they need to abide by the same rules as established in Appendix A of the IHE Governance Agreement IHE Governance. Ideally, agreements, summaries and action items should be documented, on an expert by expert basis, in the WG or TG Discussion Summaries and Action Item lists.

Voting on Governance Committee Activities

Since the only official confirmation and approval of PCD work comes from the Governance Committees, voting within the Planning and Technical Committees must follow strict procedural guidelines in accordance with the IHE Governance Agreement IHE Governance adopted by IHE International in the Fall of 2007.

The following links provide supporting information:

Every participant on the committee must be a designated representative of an IHE Member Organization or a temporaty observer.

Voting

In order for decisions to be made we are required to have a quorum of 50% of the voting eligible members participate. A vote is carried by a simple majority of those voting, excluding abstentions (which however count toward quorum). We have agreed to the following procedures to encourage strong participating from all voting members so that the work of the committee will not be delayed due to lack of a quorum.

Acquiring and Maintaining Voting Priveleges

  • In order to acquire voting priveleges a Member Organization must vote (or abstain) at 2 Decision Meetings / Email Ballots in a row. Their vote counts at the second meeting.
  • In order to loose voting priveleges a Member Organization must fail to vote (or abstain) at 3 Voting Meetings / Email Ballots in a row.

Review Voting for a number of FAQs related to how an organization acquires and maintains voting privileges. It is critical that those who have voting rights participate consistently.

Meeting Types

  • Meetings will be declared as discussion or decision meetings.
    • At discussion meetings there will be no voting or decisions made, it will allow only for technical discussion of the issues on a particular topic. Participating in a discussion meeting will not count towards maintaining voting rights. Meeting records from discussion meetings will be captured in Decision Summaries which will be reviewed for accuracy but not be voted on for approval.
    • At decision meetings there may be votes or conclusions drawn. Meeting records from decision meetings will be captured in a combination of Decision Summaries and Meeting Minutes (which capture voting decisions). The Discussion Summaries will not require approval however the Meeting Minutes will be approved after the meeting by email ballot. Participating in the meeting counts towards maintaining voting rights. Response to the minutes approval email ballot counts separately towards maintaining voting rights.

Email Ballots

  • An email ballot is equivalent to a decision meeting in terms of consideration for maintenance of voting privileges. At present we have email ballots for: approval of minutes, CP ballots, co-chair election, IHE international board representative election.
  • For email ballots all votes must be submitted by email and must be submitted by the due date.
  • Email ballot due date will be due a minimum of two weeks from release.
  • Results of email ballots will be captured in the Meeting Minutes of the relevant Governance Committee.

Voting at Face-to-Face and Tcon meetings

  • For face-to-face and tcon meetings only those attending may cast a vote. Those not attending may designate a proxy or abstain by email. For face-to-face meetings, attendance can be either in person or over the phone.
  • Voting at face-to-face and tcon meetings will be:
    • orally by voice poll
    • submitted by email to the committee secretary prior to or at the time of the vote
    • through a webex poll
  • The co-chairs will make the decision as to which voting process will be used depending on the gravity of the issue.
  • Results of Face-to-Face and Tcon Meeting ballots will be captured in the Meeting Minutes of the relevant Governance Committee.

Proxy

  • Each member organization may identify a proxy from its organization for the purpose of voting. If the member organization is a user organization then it can also identify a proxy from its own organization or another member organization. The proxy must be declared prior to the beginning of the meeting. It is declared by the bestower of the proxy via email to the secretary, by copy to the co-chairs and by copy to the receiver of the proxy. Proxies cannot be used for email ballots.

Abstain by Email

  • For purpose of maintaining voting rights for members unable to attend meetings, it is possible to submit an "abstain" email vote to the secretary prior to the beginning of the meeting. Any vote received after the beginning of the meeting will be discarded (i.e. an "abstain" email vote received on the second day of a one week meeting will not count for maintaining voting rights)

Closed Issues

  • How to handle one person who represents multiple organizations. Answer: One person one vote - every person can only be associated with exactly one IHE Member Organization for voting purposes.
  • How to handle votes for people unable to attend meetings (because of time zone for instance). Answer: allowing proxy but limit it to one per member and allowing "abstain" email vote submitted prior to the beginning of the meeting.

Voting for Board Representative

Under the governance rules each IHE development domain selects one representative and one alternate to the IHE International Board. The PCD domain will select its representative and alternate using the following process:

  1. Sponsor canvasses co-chairs to see who is interested in serving on the Board.
  2. Steering Committee will decide based on concensus who will represent the Domain as its representative and alternate.
  3. If concensus cannot be reached, then Sponsor will call an email ballot of the PCD Planning and Technical committees. Each member organization gets one vote even if they are members of both committees.
  4. The sponsor tallies the vote and announces results. Top vote getter is board member, second vote getter is alternate.



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