All the rules are set out in the HDS certification – Accreditation reference system and the COFRAC’s "Exigences spécifiques pour l’accréditation des organismes procédant à la certification de systèmes de management dans le domaine des technologies de l’information" (Specific requirements for structures that certify management systems in the information technology sector), available in our Documentation section.

To find out more about the list of certified and accredited bodies, click on the links below.

There are 6 types of activities that make you eligible as a health data host:

1. providing and monitoring the operations of a physical site that hosts the material infrastructure of the IS used to treat health data;
2. providing and maintaining the structural material used by the IS to host health data;
3. providing and maintaining a platform that hosts the IS applications;
4. providing and maintaining a digital structure for the IS which hosts health data;
5. the administration and exploitation of the IS which contains the health data;
6. health data backup services.

The full list of HDS-certified activities is available here: 

Le Centre de Gestion des Terminologies de Santé a donc pour mission de se charger de cette maîtrise d’ouvrage opérationnelle des ressources sémantiques, mais aussi du guichet national de publication, ainsi que de l’accompagnement des utilisateurs. En France, le CGTS regroupe à date au sein de son catalogue 34 Terminologies couvrant un grand nombre de domaines médicaux.

The evaluation is done in two phases. It is conducted by the certifying body, which must verify the compliance with the certification requirements set out in the HDS Certification document (available below).

The audit also verifies the specific requirements for health data hosting are being met. 

A terminology is an ensemble of concepts defined by terms which belong to a specific language set. 

Terminologies are defined through a research process aimed at finding the most relevant terms used by a specific profession (or a field of expertise) in a particular context of use. 

Centralising and monitoring this vocabulary is essential to maintain a coherent use of the terms amongst eHealth experts and healthcare professionals.

The digital transition in France involves much more health data transfers. It is essential to set up a common language in this ecosystem, which currently lacks homogeneity at a local and international scale. The CGTS was created by the State to centralise the semantic resources for health professionals.