Affiliate Reports

Two different groups of Affiliates announced that they'd work to create a higher level of coordination between them:

• HL7 in Latin American countries – collaboration is building within South America with a view to economical distribution of HL7 related material to Spanish speaking countries, and providing education, implementation and certification initiatives. There are currently 3 Latin American Affiliates, but a range of other countries are interested.
• European Union (EU) projects: there are 16 HL7 Affiliates in Europe, and there is a desire from HL7 for consolidated EU perspectives on key issues. Various options were canvassed
  • A key EU “umbrella” project is the Action Plan for e-health in the EU – the objective is to accelerate awareness & uptake of e-health as an enabler of improved health services and outcomes. The main areas of activity are national/regional roadmaps (by end 2005), common approaches to identification and EHR interoperability standards (by end 2006), boosting investments in e-health, conformance testing & accreditation (by end 2007)
  • The establishment of an EU e-health standards strategy group is currently being discussed. Specific EU standards development priorities include developing patient summaries, provider and patient identifiers and emergency data sets.

Individual Affiliate Reports

A high level update of the affiliate activities:

• Australia – HL7 Australia has conducted successful education/conference/workshop activities focusing on vocabulary, openEHR and constraint mechanisms; and closer and more formal collaboration between HL7 Australia and openEHR is being built
• Canada – HL7 Canada held a successful education summit. Options for a new health informatics standards organization are being canvassed to consolidate governance of all relevant standards activities nationally and oversee implementation of health informatics standards. HL7 Canada’s membership is growing (now 300+), and its priorities include provider and patient identification, security and terminology
• France – HL7 France has translated the HL7 primer into French. A CDA group has developed its first output, prepared for the national EHR project and with support of the French software industry. Other activities include IHE, other translations, and pharmacy messaging.
• Finland – is finalizing CDA Release 2 Implementation Guidelines, conducting training activities, and developing a V3 implementation guide. HL7 Finland strongly supports the Services work being undertaken by HL7/OMG services
• Germany – national telematics organization established, with substantial focus on HL7. Priorities include national e-prescription, standardized doctor reports.
• Czech Republic – the main focus at this stage is awareness raising
• Japan – HL7 Japan now has 125 corporate members and 150 individuals. It has conducted seminars on her standards, “what’s new in health informatics standards” and V3. It has established a SIG on CDA and prioritized work on patient referrals. New projects on ehr interoperability and identification are being established
  • 3-4 tutorials/year
  • Cooperation with CDISC Japan
  • backed by Ministry-USFDA ties on ISO-HL7 fast track of 4 patient safety standards
  • Conformance testing for Shizuoka prefecture project, HL7 v2.5 with CPOE
  • CDA of Referral documents
  • Ministries interested in IHE activities
  • CDA for Referral document and Patient Data, with Digital signature, Encryption, CD format, conforming IHE’s XDI draft (cross-enterprise document interchange)
  • GSVML (formerly SNP, scope extended to Genomic Sequence Variation), CD at ISO TC215, Collaboration with CG (Clinical Genomics) SIG.
• Mexico – workshops have been held re awareness of standards. Mexico is looking at a national SNOMED license.
• Netherlands – All hospitals will have to implement orders and results by the end of 2006, and it is hoped that this will precipitate a move to latest available V2 (at least 2.4). Balloting of Dutch specialization documents (Infrastructure Management, CMETs and Data Types). Ongoing work on national infrastructure (GP Professional Summary, Medication / Pharmacy, Electronic Child Record) . Representation and use of BSN (national patient identifier). Linking Orders to DBC (Dutch DRGs) at time of ordering.
• South Korea – 2 meetings have held, both well attended (100+) and educational in nature. Topics included CCOW, V3 and the RIM. The RIM has been translated into Korean and included in national standards documentation. V3 specifications are being developed for national discharge summary work. Approximately 30 people are certified in V2, and a Graduate School has included HL7 in its health informatics curriculum
• Spain – hosted an HL7 awareness session for Mediterranean countries, which was well attended. HL7 Spain is 2 years old and membership is small but growing. A Technical Committee has been established
• Sweden - First annual meeting held in February 2006. Just over 30 member organisations. First year budget ~ 250.000 SEK (~ 40,000 USD). HL7 Sweden will focus on v3. HL7 Sweden wil closely cooperate with SIS (Swedish Standards Institute). Upcoming seminars/events for members: RIM (before summer), CDA (September), CCOW & Clinical Decision Support (October), HL7 version 2.5 (November/December 2006 or early in 2007). Two member meetings/year (May and October). There are still some systems using v2.5 but everyone is more interested in what v3 has to offer.
• Taiwan – the 5th Asia-Pacific & Cross Strait HL7 Conference is to be held on 7-8 July 2006 in Taipei. Its focus will be HL7 focus is implementation.
• UK – membership is stable. The Implementers Group is picking up and provides an sound feedback mechanism for HL7 standards developers. There is recognition from industry that standards are required beyond those directed by government, and they are engaging. A series of workshops is being held to advance initiatives seen as key to HL7 V3 implementation – specifically services, CDA and tooling
• USA – the dispute with ASTM re the Continuity of Care Record (CCR) has been substantially resolved. A collaboration between HIMSS and ANSI will actively drive harmonization of health informatics standards in the USA – this is seen as one of the key elements of interoperability. Other keys include certification (via CCHIT); development of a national privacy platform; and National Health Information Infrastructure architecture projects