HL7 Now and After PlugIT HL7 Finland , PlugIT, Kuopio, MicroTower Timo Tarhonen, Tietotarha ( Co-chair HL7 Finland TC Presentation ID:

PlugIT - HL7 - Timo Tarhonen2 HISTORY HL7 Finland was founded late 1995 International HL7 Affiliate Status 1996 –5th affiliate –now there are 24 affiliates or more Now 64 members in HL7 Finland –Providers (hospital districts) –Vendors –Consultants –Organisations SIGS: Laboratory (Active), Document (very active), PACS (dead), Common Services (Active)  HL7 is well known and has wide coverage

PlugIT - HL7 - Timo Tarhonen3 Main target Main target is to help in healthcare systems integration Main tool in that is to help with HL7 Implementation, HL7 Finland has the HL7 Mandate in Finland (as an affiliate organization) HL7 Finland is officially not restricted solely to HL7 Our specifications must be good and implementable, not theoretically perfect (we want them out now)

PlugIT - HL7 - Timo Tarhonen4 Official status of HL7 in Finland No official status (No official fights) –de facto standard Co-operation with –Kuntaliitto (Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities) –Stakes (National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health) –STM (Ministry of Social Affairs and Health) –Kuopion yliopisto (University of Kuopio) National health care program is using HL7 CDA R2 as the basis for EHR

PlugIT - HL7 - Timo Tarhonen5 Implementation support history Localisation of version 2.3 in 1997 Implementation guides for v Localised messages and implementation guide for Laboratory ( ) Localisation and implementation guide of CDA R ( ) Implementation of CDA R1 in reference databases, ”Open Adapters” ( ) National Health project (2003): Open CDA, Implementation of CDA R2 for EHR ( )

PlugIT - HL7 - Timo Tarhonen6 What’s new in Implementation support Until now the implementation guide projects have been lead by HL7 Finland PlugIT project –Context management specification (subset of CCOW) –HL7 Finland is now reviewing and balloting that spec –That spec is going to be the first HL7 Finland standard not made by HL7 Finland itself

PlugIT - HL7 - Timo Tarhonen7 Help needed EHR CDA R2 implementation means much work, but other standardised interfaces and mechanisms are also needed Kuopio University is willing to help via our Common Services SIG and via new (TEKES) projects –International influence via HL7 Finland –more specifications to reach HL7 Finland status: local interfaces for patient, user, authorization, code sets, clinical information: basic interfaces, mechanisms and semantic content, web services Local software interfaces compared to traditional HL7 messaging: less content (but anyway HL7), but more functionality –Co-operation with HL7 technical committee and Help Desk

PlugIT - HL7 - Timo Tarhonen8 Open CDA Support project 2004 Funded by STM National project and partly by HL7 Finland Contents –Project management –Help Desk –Technical Committee –New interface implementations CDA R2 Lab results, Diagnosis list, –Education –Information delivery Working well, we want to continue it next year University of Kuopio is also participating the project

PlugIT - HL7 - Timo Tarhonen9 International HL7 Development is going on rapidly and output can be seen –slowing effect: more participants, new areas Several parts of version 3 are ready –CDA R –CDA R2 January 2005? –Scheduling and also other messages –Infrastructure: XML Implementation and Datatypes New package method –because of interdependence of common elements: RIM, Vocabulary, Datatypes, CMETs, control wrappers –new release of HL7 version 3 standard family published once a year (implementation support releases 3 times a year)

PlugIT - HL7 - Timo Tarhonen10 HL7 and Finland in Future HL version 2.x will be in use for many years (don’t want to replace it where it works) CDA R1 and Context Management solutions (CCOW) are in production Soon first implementations of CDA R2 (for EHR) Common services specifications (-> International HL7?) CDA R2 is the bridge to HL7 Version 3 messaging (starting in 2005 in Finland?) –Some theoretical parts would be ideal projects for universities (students, Kuopio)

Thanks, congratulations and good luck