Health Level Seven International
Karen Van Hentenryck
Associate Executive Director
3300 Washtenaw Avenue,
Suite 227
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Phone: 734.677.7777 x104
Fax: 734.677.6622
Website: www.HL7.org
Organizational Overview
Founded in 1987, Health Level Seven® (HL7) International is a non-profit, ANSI-accredited standards development organization with members in more than 50 countries and is the global authority on interoperability for healthcare information technology.
More than just a set of standards for data messaging, HL7 is a family of technologies that provides a universal common framework for interoperability of healthcare data. By helping make healthcare IT systems interoperable, HL7 makes providers and organizations across the healthcare continuum more successful at achieving their goals.
With more than 4,000 members worldwide, HL7 represents hundreds of healthcare vendors, providers, payers, government agencies, consultants and others. In the U.S. alone, 90 percent of the largest health information system vendors are HL7 members. HL7 standards are developed through the commitment and hard work of thousands of volunteers around the world.
In the U.S., the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has defined criteria for showing "meaningful use" of an EHR a requirement for receiving government financial incentives-as including the exchange of electronic data based on HL7 standards. Several HL7 standards are referenced in federal regulations.
HL7 standards and selected IP (intellectual property) are freely available under licensing terms. HL7 aims to increase human health and wellness by improving healthcare delivery on a global scale by making our framework easier to adopt, implement, and use.
Scope of Standards Developing Activity
HL7 is a non-profit, ANSI accredited standards development organization dedicated to providing a comprehensive framework and related standards for the exchange, integration, sharing and retrieval of electronic health information that support clinical practice and the management, delivery and evaluation of health services. The organization also ballots its standards through ISO.
HL7 is home to several families of standards, including Fast Health Interoperability Resource (FHIR®), Clinical Document Architecture (CDA®), Consolidated CDA (C-CDA), ERH/PHR System Functional Models, Version 2, Version 3, Arden Syntax and the Reference Information Model (RIM).
Quick Links
International Activities by Region
Americas
Charles Jaffe, MD, Ph.D
3300 Washtenaw Avenue,
Suite 227, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734.677.7777
[email protected]
Asia Pacific
Grahame Grieve
+61 3-98445796
Europe
Catherine Chronaki
HL7 International Foundation Square de Meeûs
38/40 1000 Brussels Belgium
[email protected]
HL7 International established its European Office as a private foundation in Brussels in June 2010 to support its mission in creating HL7 standards and frameworks that are widely and easily used enabling interoperability in healthcare, also serving the specific needs of the European community and its national HL7 affiliates.
Specifically, the HL7 Foundation will support the mission of HL7 international through activities focused in cross-border eHealth interoperability in the wider European region by:
- Promoting the use of the HL7 framework and protocol specifications;
- Encouraging the use of the HL7 framework and protocol specifications by health systems and service providers;
- Seeking formal accreditation for these HL7 protocol specifications where necessary generally, promoting high quality, cost-effective use of information systems in the widest variety of health and healthcare related environments.
