Health Level 7 (HL7)

One of my favorites is the contribution of information for the development of Health Level Seven, International (HL7 USA), Ann Arbor, MI, USA.

I am responsible for the development of the HL7 comprehensive database. The third version has been released last year. But the next version will come soon with a few more features.

Dates for Important Appointments

It is very hard to do some planning for the next meetings. It should be prevented from arranging appointments on the same date. Therefore, we have organzied a calendar where all such important dates are listed.

Whitepaper

A list of interesting whitepapers on HL7 topics will be published soon.

HL7 Experts Consortium

In January 2003 a group of HL7 experts has been founded which should provide help on issues especially related to HL7. This group is the biggest association of independent consultants worldwide.
Please find more information at www.hl7experts.com.

HL7 Events

A good list of events happening around integration issues in general and HL7 in specific can be found on the HL7 Europe website.

Volunteer of the Year Award 2002

Every year the HL7 community honors individuals who have spent a lot of time and energy on HL7 issues. A special award (HL7 Volunteer of the Year Award 2002) has been created thereof which is handed to those individuals during the plenary session in the fall meeting.

Content Management

The second International Affiliate Meeting has been held in Reading, UK at the end of August 2001. In Reading we had the opportunity to present the latest approach on Content Management using database and web techniques for maintaining a standard.

With the upcoming new HL7 Standard FHIR - Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources - this project is revived again. A new tooling stack is under development facilitating FHIR features, structure definitions and tools.

Other Information

You can find information about HL7 also at

Health Level Seven, Inc.
HL7 Benutzergruppe in Deutschland e.V. (German HL7 User Group)
Wiki des Interoperabilitätsforums
HL7 Tools

These pages also guide you to the other International Affiliates.

HL7 Database

One major activity is the maintenance of the official HL7 database. The last release with some new features currently contains v2.8.1 as well.

Some available functionality for the database:

v2.8
v2.8.1
generation of OWL files according to CSO (communication standards ontology)
XML generation
contains the image files as well

Inconsistency List(s)

This page should provide information about the inconsistencies within the current version. In contrast to previous inconsistency lists this one also checks the interversion compatibility. As such, even if the list seems not to be shorter than the previous ones, the current version of the standard is the best one we have:

HL7 V.2.8.1 (Final Standard)

Information about the previous version can be found in my archive.

Version 2.5

If you do not want to check directly the whole standard for new features you can make use of some withepapers with a comprehensive list:

News in HL7 V.2.5 (in English)

Archive

Some information which may be of interest for developers of previous HL7 versions may take a look into the archive. It contains articles of minor interest:

HL7 Version 2.2
HL7 Version 2.3 (Ballot #1)
HL7 Version 2.3 (Ballot #2)
HL7 Version 2.3 (Ballot #3)
HL7 Version 2.3 (Final Standard)
HL7 Version 2.3 (Implementation Guide - Ballot #1)
HL7 V.2.3.1 (Ballot #1)
HL7 V.2.3.1 (Final Standard)
HL7 V.2.4 (Committe Ballot #1)
HL7 V.2.4 (Final Standard)
HL7 V.2.5 (Final Standard)
HL7 V.2.5.1 (Final Standard)
HL7 V.2.6 (Final Standard)
HL7 V.2.7 (Final Standard)
HL7 V.2.8.1 (Final Standard)
HL7 V.2.8.2 (Final Standard)
HL7 V.2.9 (Final Standard)