Health Level Seven Launches Singapore Chapter

Contacts:

Health Level Seven Launches Singapore Chapter

Move Affirms National Commitment to Promote and Adopt Leading Specifications for Healthcare Data Exchange

Singapore - June 27, 2008

• Today, the launch of Health Level Seven (Singapore) was officiated by Mr Fong Choon Khin, Chairman of Health Level Seven (Singapore), Dr Sarah Christine Muttitt, CIO of MOH Holdings Singapore and Dr Charles Jaffe CEO of Health Level Seven Inc. Over a half-day session, clinicians, healthcare and IT professionals welcomed networking and information exchange with these distinguished incumbents as well as Mr Gora Datta, Health Level Seven International Ambassador.
• An extension of the US-based Health Level Seven Inc., Health Level Seven (Singapore) is a not-for-profit and carries a three-fold mission for the Singapore healthcare industry:
  • To support the development, promotion and implementation of Health Level Seven (HL7) standards in ways which meet the needs of healthcare organizations, healthcare professionals and healthcare IT practitioners in Singapore;
  • To match Singapore's national requirement with HL7 standards, and if necessary, develop Singapore-specific messages, profiles and implementation guides; and
  • To educate the Singapore community and healthcare IT practitioners about HL7 standards, as well as to promote effective and consistent implementation of HL7 standards.
• Health Level Seven is one of several American National Standards Institute (ANSI) -accredited Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) operating in the healthcare arena. Most SDOs produce standards (sometimes called specifications or protocols) for a particular healthcare domain such as pharmacy, medical devices, imaging or insurance (claims processing) transactions. Health Level Seven domain includes clinical, research and administrative data.
• In addition to the membership recruitment drive that begins today, Health Level Seven (Singapore) is offering its first technical training course to develop skills for the Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) and Continuity of Care Document (CCD). Registration and programme details will soon be available at http://www.hl7.org.sg

Supporting Quotes

• Mr Fong Choon Khin, Chairman of Health Level Seven (Singapore) said, "Hospitals and various healthcare organisations in Singapore are increasingly implementing new technologies in their operations. There is a need to ensure these different IT systems work synergistically to optimise workflow, minimise ambiguity and reduce redundancy in processes, thus achieving process, semantic and technical interoperability. Through this new HL7 (Singapore) Affiliate, we hope to actively engage local healthcare users, providers and product suppliers in adopting a common set of standards for healthcare systems that will bring about seamless exchange of information such as administrative and clinical data, which goes a long way in enhancing patient care delivery across the care continuum."
• Dr Sarah Christine Muttitt, CIO of MOH Holdings said, "HL7 will be critical to achieving our vision of one Singaporean - one electronic health record. Interoperability and standardization are fundamental to ensure health information can be successfully shared across our health system to improve the quality and safety of healthcare. We are proud to participate in HL7 initiative and look forward to collaboration with other HL7 affiliates worldwide to advance the interoperability of electronic health records."
• Dr Charles Jaffe, CEO of Health Level Seven Inc, USA, said, For more than two decades, the significant technical achievements and broad global implementation of Health Level 7 standards have been predicated on contribution of Affiliate members from around the world. The skills of many individuals in Singapore, the newest HL7 Affiliate, bring invaluable addition to the leadership in the healthcare IT community, to the rapid growth of expertise of the Southeast Asian realm, and to our global standards organization. The executive leadership, the Chairman and the Board of Directors of HL7 welcome Singapore to its family.

Supporting Resources

http://www.hl7.org/

About Health Level Seven and Health Level 7 (Singapore)

Founded in 1987, Health Level Seven Inc. (www.hl7.org) is an open, not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited standards developing organization dedicated to providing standards for interoperability that improve care delivery, optimize workflow, reduce ambiguity and enhance knowledge transfer among all of our stakeholders, including healthcare providers, government agencies, the vendor community, fellow SDOs and patients. HL7 has more than 2,300 members representing approximately 500 corporate members, including 90 percent of the information systems vendors serving healthcare. Numerous HL7 Affiliates have been established around the globe including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, Uruguay, and now Singapore.

HL7 (Singapore) is an open, not-for-profit organization to support the development, promotion and implementation of HL7 standards in ways that meet the needs of healthcare organizations, healthcare professionals and healthcare IT practitioners in Singapore.


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