Chairman’s Christmas Message 2019
At the conclusion of an exhausting year and, almost unbelievably, another decade, it seems fitting to provide a just a few personal highlights and point those interested in a longer account of 2019 – as viewed by HL7 New Zealand – to my recent Chairman’s Report to the HL7 NZ AGM.
- HL7® FHIR® R4 – THE standard for creating Digital Health APIs, case closed – there is no viable alternative; adoption of international standards is the critical, pre-condition for interoperability.
- Increased involvement of clinicians and patients in the development and implementation of HL7 standards – essential members of the community-based approach that has replaced the top-down model disrupted by FHIR.
- Digital Health Week NZ – fantastic event in NZ’s finest city (slight hint of bias from this Hamiltonian!); now the leading health informatics conference in the Southern Hemisphere.
- National Health Information Platform (nHIP) – this year’s most promising newcomer; plenty of challenges ahead, but the logical design is an excellent start.
- NZ ePrescription Service – finally reaching ‘critical mass’ and increasingly used as a major data asset by the Sector; it’s been a long and hard road!
- HL7NZ Web Site – new platform, branding and regularly-updated content; now positioned to be the hub for the local HL7 standards community.
Hence, in general, it’s been a positive year – the major exception being that the one gift that I requested (back in January) is unlikely to be delivered by Santa. All I really wanted for Christmas was access to my own digital healthcare record via a FHIR API. My carefully, coded primary care record, now sits securely (I trust) on a cloud server…so in 2020, please set my data free or, to quote ePatient. Dave de Bronkart…‘gimme my damn data’.
Finally, on a more festive, note, I’d like to extend sincere thanks to all of our members and benefactors (notably the Digital and Data Services Team at the Ministry of Health) for their support in the past year and I hope that you and your families all enjoy a well-earned Christmas and New Year break. I look forward to continuing to work together as we strive to improve healthcare outcomes via interoperability in the new decade!
Seasons’ Greetings,
Peter Jordan, Chairman HL7 New Zealand
