There is understandable concern about low uptake and sub-optimal use of health informatics systems, which is often caused by a lack of shared objectives and values by the different stakeholders. Moreover, all parties work to different ethical codes. For future success, all need to work to the same values and objectives, measured by agreed outcomes data, creating robust evidence. The Statement on Reporting of Evaluation Studies in Health Informatics (STARE-HI), by being recently endorsed by IMIA, EFMI and the EQUATOR Network, may therefore provide a generic objectives framework to help achieve common goals.