HL7 New Zealand

Spring 2021 Update

Firstly, we hope that this message finds you all well and looking forward to longer days, warmer weather and (hopefully) the end of lockdowns before too long. Although this year has developed into another challenging one for everyone, the Global Pandemic has certainly highlighted the need for international health information standards and, going forward, these will also be essential as the world adapts to a changed environment.
 
In particular, two HL7® FHIR® Implementation Guides – International Patient Summary and SMART Health Cards – are likely to play a key role in both cross-border and local use cases where patients’ essential clinical details need to be exchanged and presented in a conformant and consistent way.  The continued development of HL7 International standards also continues this month with the September Working Group Meeting  and 28th FHIR Connectathon. Both of these virtual events are available to everyone and HL7NZ members receive discounted rates.

NZ WORK GROUP NEWS:

Since our last update, the HL7NZ FHIR® Implementation Work Group has made excellent progress on the first version of the Base NZ FHIR Implementation Guide and this will be subject to a Membership Ballot this month, prior to official publication. Full details of this process will be distributed shortly. As this is a ‘living’ artefact, work on the next version will continue directly afterwards, so we 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.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Congratulations to HL7 Board Members, Matt Valentine and Peter Jordan for their election as Fellows of Health Informatics NZ FHINZ.
 
The Board would also like to acknowledge the recent appointment of Ryl Jensenas CEO of New Zealand Health IT and election of Isobel Frean to the Chair of HL7 Australia. We look forward to continuing our key partnerships with both organisations.