University Outreach

University Outreach Program Goals

Increase familiarity with HL7 standards among people entering the healthcare informatics field, and the number of trained HL7 experts, in support of the goal of improving the quality and effectiveness of system implementations using HL7 standards

Increase the number of universities/faculty teaching HL7 Standards content, globally

WHERE: Healthcare Informatics programs (typically graduate programs), bioinformatics programs, nursing schools, masters of public health programs. Also consider tech schools (Canada.)

What universities are teaching HC informatics? (gap analysis: are they teaching HL7, to what extent- how much depth)

Identify the global HC informatics professors, there are academic societies that have this list

Identify the HL7 members and affiliates who teach at university level

WHAT: Define what content HL7 will contribute to help teach HL7: Create teaching material that Universities can include in their courses

Decide HL7 standards to recommend teaching/providing charts to which group (V3, terminology, genomics, etc).

Students don’t know the basics of interoperability

When creating material for teaching HL7 at Universities: cultural differences in different country

Papers , books, power point charts

HOW: HL7 to help with providing info/training to Professors so they are more knowledgable about HL7 and can teach it.

Teach the teachers session in Kyoto and Atlanta?

Define (and potentially increase) HL7 benefits for Universities as members

Currently no HL7 membership category for universities!

Define HL7 benefits for Universities as members: how universities get access to HL7 specs if teaching HL7, etc, reduced cost of membership, reduced cost to attend WG meeting for Profs and students

• GOM Section 16.01.06 Academic Access to HL7 Copyrighted Materials : HL7 copyrighted materials shall be made available on a by-request basis to faculty of accredited educational institutions that are members of HL7 for the purpose of teaching for-credit courses in healthcare informatics or related subjects. Non-member faculty making such requests will be advised of the benefits of membership and encouraged to join HL7. If the faculty member declines membership, limited access to only those materials appropriate to the course in question will be granted for a period not to exceed the duration of such course in the approved curriculum. In all cases faculty will attribute such material to HL7 and notify students that reproduction of HL7 material is expressly prohibited.

Advertise on HL7 website what universities teach HC Informatics courses that include HL7 content

Potential discount on HL7 e-learning course for full time students

Provide HL7 certification testing at a reduced price to students in a full time program

Increase university, faculty and student membership in HL7 (and Affiliates), participation, and technical contribution

Get faculty and students to attend HL7 IHIC to present papers and attend WG tutorials

HL7 to stimulate papers on HL7 by academics

Define specific HL7 projects that students can contribute to (and then write a paper on): tooling projects, CDA Implementation Guides for specific form

HL7 (venues besides IHIC?) as a place for Universities (prof/students) to present papers on HL7

Explore using our AMIA, AHIMA connections in the US (and perhaps IMIA worldwide) to involve graduate students and their medical informatics programs to not just HL7, but to some actual internship possibilities on real interoperability implementations.

Rockefeller grant 2020 - globally (funding available for this) to help fund some of this program?

Increase number of students taking HL7 CDA certification testing

Discounted test fee, assuming university provides room and proctor

Make (optional) part of course content

Pilot Project for 2009

Phase 1: (February to July) - ideas

Goal: Initial set of Universities that will help scope out the content / create HL7 curriculum / powerpoint charts / identify books and other teaching material, for use in Phase 2 pilot in the fall of 2009

• Phase 1 participants are Universities/faculty already teaching HL7 content in a graduate HC Informatics course.
• KEY: Who are the HL7 members and affiliates who teach at university level?
• Create list of current HL7 benefits for Universities and put on special part of HL7 website
• Possibilities for curriculum content
  • Overview of HL7 standards with a focus on CDA in more depth
  • Provide HL7 Certification exam (probably CDA, possibly also v2 and RIM) at end of term (at a reduced cost to pilot students/faculty) proctored by the HL7 instructor; also allow others in the community to take the certification exam (at full cost) at the same time
  • Hold a Webcast for pilot students to prepare for CDA Certification Testing
  • Students participate in HL7 Working Groups / Projects
  • Students submit paper /poster to HL7 IHIC conference (May 2009 in Kyoto)

Columbia University - Virginia Lorenzi

Northwestern University - Harry Solomon

Phase 2: (August to December) - ideas

Goal: Introduce HL7 curriculum as part of existing HC Informatics courses in up to 10 Universities globally; evaluate

• KEY: Recruit some University /faculty that will teach HL7 CDA content created in phase 1 in fall semester.
• Create a list of all interested universities; Select up to 10 universities to participate in Phase 2 pilot
• Pre August Kickoff Conference call for faculty
• Hold seminars for Pilot PHASE 2 faculty participants to prepare them to teach HL7 content for the fall - a teach the teachers class. What month tbd.
• List the pilot Universities teaching HL7 Informatics courses (and also HL7 members) on the HL7 website

Course Content

• Define interoperability and the challenges in HC IT
• Benefits of HC standards, and examples on how they are used in HC at local, regional, and national level
• Overview of HL7 and family of standards
• Business benefit of CDAs and their role within the hospital and between HC institutions, sample standardized documents from HL7 and IHE content profiles built on CDAs (need global content and examples)
• CDA technical content, as specialization of RIM
• GOAL: for students in course to take HL7 Certification exam (may require additional preparation in addition to course content)