Editorial & Ethics Guidelines
Everything AzHeC publishes is meant to be trusted by people making real decisions about health data. These are the standards that keep our guidance accurate, independent, and free of any commercial interest.
Arizona
Independence you can verify, not just trust
A neutral convener's authority lives or dies on its editorial integrity. If readers suspect that a primer favors a particular vendor, or that a position paper was shaped by who paid for it, the guidance is worthless no matter how well written. So AzHeC borrows the discipline of peer-reviewed publishing: transparency in how material is sourced, declared independence from commercial interest, and a visible process for correcting what we get wrong.
Transparency, sound conflict-of-interest handling, and editorial independence are precisely what the medical-publishing world identifies as the foundations of credibility. We apply them to interoperability education because the stakes — what gets connected, how data is shared, whose privacy is protected — are just as consequential.
How we produce guidance
Every explainer, primer, and position the council publishes follows the same path. It is deliberately closer to an editorial standard than to a marketing workflow.
1. Standards-first sourcing
We start from primary sources — the published HL7, FHIR, GS1/UDI, NCPDP, and DSCSA specifications, FDA and ONC rules, and HIPAA regulation — not from a vendor's white paper. Where we describe how something works, we trace it to the spec.
2. Subject-matter review
Material is reviewed by the relevant council committee or qualified reviewers before publication, to catch technical error and confirm it reflects the current state of the standard.
3. Conflict screening
Contributors and reviewers disclose any commercial or organizational interest in the subject, mirroring the disclosure norms COPE and ICMJE recommend for editors and reviewers. Disclosed conflicts are managed, and conflicted parties do not control the conclusion.
4. Citation & dating
Claims are cited to their source and material is dated, so readers can check our basis and judge how current it is.
5. Scheduled review
Standards change. We review published guidance on a schedule and revise it when the underlying specification or regulation moves.
Our editorial principles
The lines we hold
A handful of bright lines define what AzHeC will and will not do in print. They exist so that the separation between education and commercial interest is structural, not a matter of individual goodwill.
- No paid placement. We do not accept payment to feature, rank, or favor any product, platform, or company in our guidance. Editorial space is never for sale.
- No product endorsements. We explain standards, methods, and trade-offs. We do not tell readers which vendor to buy, because a neutral convener that picks winners is no longer neutral.
- Education separated from commercial interest. The people and process that produce guidance are kept independent of any funding or membership relationship, so that what we publish answers the reader's question rather than a sponsor's.
- Disclosure over silence. Where a relevant interest exists, we disclose it rather than hope it goes unnoticed — the standard medical editors are urged to meet and too often miss.
- Plain language, no hype. We write to be understood by non-specialists, and we avoid the promotional register. If a claim sounds like a sales pitch, it does not belong in our material.
Corrections
We will get things wrong. When we do, we correct them openly: the material is updated, the nature of the correction is noted rather than buried, and significant errors are flagged so that anyone who relied on the earlier version can see what changed. A correction is treated as evidence the process is working, not as an embarrassment to hide.
Trustworthy guidance is not the absence of opinion — it is the visibility of how the opinion was formed. We show our sources, declare our interests, and correct our mistakes in the open.— The Arizona Health Interoperability Council
Editorial questions
01Does any company pay to appear in your guidance?
No. AzHeC accepts no paid placement and no sponsorship of editorial content. Membership and funding relationships are kept structurally separate from the people and process that produce guidance.
02Will you recommend a specific product or vendor?
No. We explain standards, integration patterns, and trade-offs so that you can evaluate options against the published specification. We do not endorse or rank products, because doing so would compromise the council's neutrality.
03How do you source your explainers?
From primary sources first — published standards (HL7, FHIR, GS1/UDI, NCPDP), federal rules (FDA UDI, DSCSA, ONC), and HIPAA regulation — with claims cited so readers can verify them independently.
04What happens when you publish an error?
We correct it openly. The material is updated, the correction is noted rather than hidden, and substantive errors are flagged so anyone who relied on the prior version can see exactly what changed.
05How do you handle conflicts of interest in your content?
Contributors and reviewers disclose relevant commercial or organizational interests, following the disclosure norms recommended for editors and reviewers in peer-reviewed publishing. Disclosed conflicts are managed and a conflicted party does not control the conclusion.
06How current is your guidance?
Material is dated and reviewed on a schedule. Because interoperability standards evolve, we revise published guidance when the underlying specification or regulation changes.
Spotted an error, or have a sourcing question?
We hold our published guidance to a high standard and welcome scrutiny. If you've found a mistake or want to know how we sourced something, tell us.