This document establishes a normative definition of communication between personal telehealth peak flow monitoring devices (agents) and managers (e.g., cell phones, personal computers, personal health appliances, and set top boxes) in a manner that enables plug-and-play interoperability. It leverages work done in other ISO/IEEE 11073 standards including existing terminology, information profiles, application profile standards. It specifies the use of specific term codes, formats, and behaviors in telehealth environments restricting optionality in base frameworks in favor of interoperability.

This document defines a common core of functionality of a peak-flow monitoring device. The use case is restricted to personal respiratory monitoring and therefore does not include hospital-based spirometry. Continuous and high-acuity monitoring (e.g., for emergency response) are outside the scope of the use case. In the context of personal health devices, a peak flow meter is a device is used to measure the respiratory function of those managing respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The ability to identify declining respiratory status prior to the need for acute intervention improves the quality of life for the individual while reducing the overall costs of care. Respiratory status data are collected by a personal respiratory monitoring device and forwarded to a central data repository for review and action by a health care provider. The data are episodic in nature and are forwarded at designated intervals or when the person is symptomatic.