A year in Review

Regular readers of this blog know that I organize my "standards" year around HIMSS and the IHE Interoperability Showcase.  The showcase is the culmination of a years efforts in IHE made real.
So, tonight is new year's eve as it were.  This evening I attended the EHRA annual meeting and dinner at HIMSS (my first time, though I've been a long time EHRA member).  ONC's Doug Fridsma was the keynote speaker, and he asked everyone at the meeting to e-mail him their updates on what significant has happened in standards this year.  As usual, I'm doing two things and using task to feed the blog monster as well.

There are a number of events that important to me personally this year:

1. I finished writing The CDA™ Book (yes, CDA and CCD are now HL7 trademarks, and will soon be registered).
2. I was elected to the HL7 Board
3. I got a year off from HITSP-like activities (while I was involved in the Direct Project, John Moehrke led those efforts for my employer).

Other events are also important to me personally, but also affect other members of my country.

1. The HITSP C32 was adopted as a standard for Meaningful Use, and includes work that I started on more than 5 years ago and advanced through three different organizations.
2. HL7 Version 2.3.1 and Version 2.5.1 were also adoped for laboratory reporting and immunizations in the US.
3. The Direct Project took off like a rocket, and included IHE XDM and XDR profiles in it.
4. IHE USA was finally incorporated.
5. HL7 has taken on some interesting new work and thinking in simplifying its standards.
6. SNOMED CT and LOINC were also recognized in Meaningful Use regulation.

From an International Perspective:

1. HL7 CDA moved to the "Entering the Plateau of Productivity" according to Gartner.
2. IHE moved to the "Climbing the slope" according to Gartner.  The XDS map recieved over 100,000 hits in a year, showing the popularity of this profile, and interest in where it has been adopted (I'll bet you cannot point to any other resource that tracks any other HIE interoperability specification the way this map does).
3. HL7 and ISO finished a joint ballot on the ISO/HL7 Data types, a set of standard data types for healthcare.
4. CDA was adopted by ISO as an International Standard.
5. HL7 released important draft specifications on Decision Support Services, Terminology Services, and electronic Quality Measures.
6. IHE PCC created its first workflow profile: Perinatal Workflow.
7. IHE ITI updated document subscription, and added multipatient query and cross community patient discovery.

So, that's my year in review.  If you want to see the outcomes, have a look at the Interoperability Showcase at HIMSS11 this year.  Quite of bit of what I described above is being demonstrated there, and most of it is in production.  If you want details, you can probably find me around the help desk this week.

   -- Keith

P.S.  If you cannot find me, it might be that you aren't looking for me in a suit.  It does happen, usually around this time of year.  Jacob Reider kindly provides proof: