HL7 International Council

Co-Chairs, HL7 International Council

Fernando Campos, FHL7

Line Saele

Ron Parker, FHL7

The HL7 International Council (HL7 IC) provides a forum for the HL7 international affiliates and other interested HL7 members to communicate and exchange views as well as discuss issues regarding the international development, adoption, and implementation of HL7 interoperability standards.

The International Council recommends to the Board of Directors actions and policies on behalf of the 42 International Affiliates.

HL7 International Country Affiliate Members

Argentina

Australia

Austria

Belgium

Brazil

Canada

Chile

China

Columbia

Croatia

Czech Republic

Denmark

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hong Kong

India

Italy

Japan

Korea

Mexico

Netherlands

New Zealand

Norway

Peru

Philippines

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Russia

Saudi Arabia

Singapore

Slovakia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Taiwan

Ukraine

United Arab Emirates

United Kingdom

US Realm

HL7 International Regional Partners

HELINA Pan African Health Informatics in Africa

Current affiliate representatives’ names and contact information are available from HL7.

Leadership

The HL7 International has three co-chairs reflecting a range of locations around the globe:

FERNANDO CAMPOS

HL7 Argentina

Fernando Campos, FHL7, is an Information Systems Engineer with a Master Degree in Strategic Direction of Software Engineering. He is currently Affiliate Director at the HL7 Board, HL7 EAC member and HL7 Argentina chair since 2012.

LINE SAELE

HL7 Norway

Line is an Enterprise Architect at Norwegian Institute of Public Health. She is currently Affiliate Director at the HL7 Board, and a member of the HL7 Europe Board of Directors.
She is also the chair of HL7 Norway, and co-chair of Patient Administration Work Group

RON PARKER

HL7 Canada

Ron is an Enterprise Architect and has been participating in HL7 since 1998. He is Chair of HL7 Canada, and also currently an International Director of the HL7 Board, and international representative to the HL7 US Realm Steering Committee.

The co-chairs coordinate closely with the Affiliate Directors on the HL7 Board of Directors and our international colleagues Diego Kaminker of HL7 Argentina, in his role as the HL7 Deputy Chief Standards Implementation Officer, and with FHIR Product Director Grahame Grieve of HL7 Australia.

International Council Activities in 2023

International Council meetings continued to be held virtually at the virtual HL7 working group meetings (WGMs), and between WGM meetings. Virtual and in-person meetings of the Council in 2023 were held at the WGMs in January, April, May, August, September, October and December. Approximately 50-65% of affiliates actively attend these meeting.

Highlights for 2023

AGREEMENT

A new Affiliate Agreement Master Document was finalized and approved by the International Council and the Board. The new Agreement became effective January of 2024.

FUNDING

The HL7 Board approved an increase to HL7 IC’s Discretionary Budget from $15,000 to $25,000 USD. These funds have been fully committed in supporting training and connectathon events in several Affiliate countries. This is very much appreciated by the HL7 Affiliates.

AFRICA

HELINA, the Pan African Health Informatics Association, became new a new regional HL7 partner.

CENTRAL AMERICA

HL7 International representatives were very active in working to establish a national affiliate in Ecuador and a regional affiliate representing five countries in Central America.

ASIA

Negotiations are also underway to establishing an HL7 partnership arrangement in Asia.

QUORUM

Revised our formula for establishing quorum based on the number of engaged affiliate members.

DATES

• The International Council voted to hold May 2025 International WGM in Madrid, Spain and the May 2026 WGM in the Netherlands

BOF

FHIR International Birds of a Feather (BOF) meetings held on Sundays to intersect with FHIR Connectathons, which has been very informative.

Major Subjects of Interest to the HL7 International Council in 2023

The HL7 IC has significantly increased HL7 Affiliate information sharing in the course of the HL7 IC meetings. A number of topics were presented and discussed at length, these included:

Global use of the International Patient Summary

In-depth updates from many Affiliates including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Argentina, Switzerland, Norway and the UK

Development of the HL7 Affiliate Agreement Master document

Better Alignment of the HL7 Affiliate Agreement with the Governance Operations Manual and HL7 By-Laws

Ad-hoc meetings of Affiliates on how we are developing core or baseline specifications for use in our respective realms

Board Task Force on Membership with a focus new value-add member offerings

Better structuring of the approval process for the IC Discretionary Budget. Addition of Discretionary Budget review and request for proposal as a standing agenda item for IC meetings.

Addition of HL7 Policy and Advisory Committee regular updates on our standing agenda

Increasing coordination of international FHIR implementations, with a focus on sharing profiles, and on Affiliates taking their implementation guides (IG) through a more structured and consistent due-diligence process, aligned with HL7 FHIR Community Practices

Creation of a framework within FHIR to support language translation of exchanges of FHIR instance content

Liaison with World Health Organization (WHO) to support the translation of FHIR specifications for WHO’s required languages

Request from FHIR Product Manager for affiliates to establish their own terminology servers by the end of 2024

Discussion on how Affiliates are handling Canonical URLs for their national IGs

HL7 Policy Advisory Committee and IC Co-Chair developing an Interoperability / International Playbook for Affiliates that includes the roe of policy in achieving interoperability, as well as the role of HL7 Affiliates and their use of standards developing organization (SDO) due diligence processes in becoming an essential part of the digital health initiatives and governance in their respective countries

Plans for 2024

The HL7 International Council is focused on supporting the implementation of FHIR internationally, and on increasing the awareness of international issues and activities by HL7 members as well as shaping of priorities for the HL7 Board of Directors.

For more detail about 2023, please read the full reports from our HL7 Divisions.

Standards Implementation CSDO Treasurer Executive Director International