HL7 New Zealand

HL7 NZ 2021 Annual General Meeting – Thursday 18 November at 3pm

The 2021 HL7 New Zealand Annual General Meeting was held on Thursday 18^thNovember at 3:00pm virtually via ZOOM.  Ten seats on the Executive Board were up for election and these were filled by eight members of the previous board along with new members Gordon Inkson (MedTech) and Daniel Thomson (Ministry of Health). The outgoing Board Members – who both voluntarily stepped down after huge contributions – were Alastair Kenworthy (Ministry of Health) who served for 10 years on the Board and was the key link in our evolving relationship with the Ministry of Health and HISO; and Derek Buchanan who provided thought leadership, notably with regard to HL7 education and certification both in the local and international communities.

The Chairman’s and Treasurer’s Annual Reports, presented to the Meeting, can be found in the minutes.

At the first meeting of the new Board, held directly afterwards, the following officers were unanimously re-elected for two-year terms up to November 2023: Peter Sergent (Vice Chair) and David Moorhouse (Treasurer).  Peter Jordan (Chair) and Linda McKay (Secretary) will continue in their roles until November 2022, having been elected to serve two year terms in November 2020.

HL7NZ Webinar Series 2021 – HL7® FHIR® HPI Profiles

Thank you to those who attended the October HL7NZ Webinar Series 2021 where Daniel Thomson and Pat Ryan – both Solution Architects at the NZ Ministry of Health presented their views and practical experience on HL7® FHIR® HPI Profiles and covered their recent work on the HPI FHIR® API implementation.  An opportunity for Q&A was also offered at the conclusion of the presentations which provided some great insight around implementation considerations. 

For those who could not attend, you can find the recording of the presentation here plus PowerPoint presentations from Daniel Thomson and Pat Ryan.

Feel free to send topic suggestions for future webinars to admin@hl7.org.nz

HL7® FHIR® NZ Base Implementation Guide Published

We have just published the first version of the HL7 FHIR NZ Base Implementation Guide. This is the result of many months of diligent work by our HL7NZ FHIR® Implementation Work Group, with broad sector representation, and passed the required Membership Ballot, held last month, with flying colours. This Guide contains the base FHIR implementation rules for New Zealand (exclusively extensions, identifiers, and terminologies in this version). It is an ‘abstract’ artefact from which all other FHIR Implementation Guides in New Zealand may be derived, and we hope that it will be a valuable resource for the local FHIR community.
 
As it is a ‘living’ artefact, work on the next version will commence later this month, and the Work Group will continue to hold regular, one-hour meetings on Fridays at 12:00pm. All interested parties are welcome to attend these meetings – further details are available on our Web Site.

October 2021 News

We are delighted to announce that an updated Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Health Information Standards Organisation (HISO) was signed on 1^st October 2021. The MoU exists to recognise the respective roles of both organisations and the ways in which they can work together to use standards for the good of interoperability in the New Zealand health and disability system, and to play our part in the international standards community,
 
Congratulations to HL7 New Zealand Chair Peter Jordan for being re-elected as an Affiliate Director on the HL7 International Board for a further two-year term. Peter has also been elected, as an Affiliate Representative, to the recently formed HL7 International Terminology Services Management Group.