Monday, June 17, 2019

Telling Time the HL7 Way

If you've never been to an HL7 Working group meeting, you'll run into some shorthand that long-time HL7'ers know that you'll have to catch up on.  The first is how we split up the day.

Officially, the day has 4 quarters, with breakfast, lunch and two breaks:


  • Breakfast starts 8-ish, and goes until 9:00.
  • Q1 goes from 9-10:30am
  • Morning Break is 10:30-11am.
  • Q2 is from 11am - 12:30pm
  • Lunch goes from 12:30-1:45pm.  There's plenty of time to each, call home, and take a short meeting.
  • Q3 is 1:45-3pm and is a "short" quarter by 15 minutes.
  • Cookie break is 3-3:30pm.
  • Q4 goes is 3:30-5pm.


A "Q0" meeting (not part of the official nomenclature, but still well-understood) is before breakfast, usually 7-ish, but could also be "overlapping" with breakfast.

"Q5" and "Q6" are generally "after 5" till about 6:30-ish, and after "Q5" till whenever...  This is often where some good work happens (some would even say "the real work").

If you are doing HL7 meeting stuff from Q0 to Q6, you still have 12 hours for your day job and sleep.  Your mileage may vary.

Monday after 5pm is the cochair's dinner.  If you want to hang with a cochair, they are likely busy from 5-7:30 or so Monday night.

Wednesday starting around 5:30 is the HL7 Reception.  This goes until about 7:30.

The first half of Monday in September is the Plenary session.

Monday and Tuesday at the WGM in January are the two Payer Summit days.

Connectathons are Saturday and Sunday before the Working group meeting.  Quarters?  Yeah, kinda.  We have them, food shows up at the right times.  But it's a Connectathon, software is ready when it's ready.  Some have been known to work until Q8 or 9, and maybe even start at Q -1.

I wanna say board meetings happen somewhere in Q3 and 4 on Tuesdays, but it's really up to the chair.

Technical Steering Committee (a governance committee) meets Saturday and Sunday.
International Council is Sunday and Thursday Afternoon.
Education Facilitators Lunch is Monday most meetings.

   Keith



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