Early Adopters
Meeting Minutes | Co-Chairs | Mission/Charter | Documents/Presentations | List of Early Adopters
Co-Chairs
Hi3 Solutions
Mission / Charter
The HL7 Board of Directors had established an Early Adopters Program under the auspices of the Implementation Committee. The Implementation Committee is a Board appointed administrative committee. The mission of the Implementation Committee is "to support HL7 members and other users of HL7 standard, draft standard and informative protocol specifications with the identification and resolution of issues related to successful implementation of the specifications."
A goal of the Version 3 Early Adopters Program is to identify, support and recognize organizations that are undertaking specific implementation projects that use Version 3 standards that are still under development, draft standard for trail use, or first release of a normative specification. This program assures that Early Adopters have a forum in which to share their experiences, that they have access to appropriate technical support from HL7 committees, and that their experience will lead to value-added refinement of the standards.
The first meeting of Early Adopters was held on Wednesday, January 21, 2004 during the Working Group Meeting in San Diego. The meeting was attended by more than 80 people from throughout the world representing more than 30 distinct v3 implementation projects. Each participant was asked to complete a worksheet describing their project, identifying the v3 specifications being implemented and providing contact information for primary project contacts. The data from the worksheets have been collected in a spreadsheet and posted to the Implementation Committee page of the HL7 website.
A list service has been established for the Implementation Committee and the Early Adopter Program. Interested parties can subscribe to the lists by following the appropriate links on the HL7 website or from the Implementation Committee page. The Implementation Committee is working in conjunction with staff at HL7 Headquarters and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to establish a registry for early adopters. An Early Adopter registration function will be hosted on the HL7 website and will provide a means for early adopters to identify themselves, describe their projects, indicate which V3 standards their projects implement, provide contact information for the project, and optionally provide a link to a project website. Once registered in the Early Adopter program an early adopter will be able to upload to the NIST v3 artifact registry relevant documents such as implementation guides, localized v3 artifacts, and technical committee inquires. Their posting will be cross-referenced to the appropriate v3 artifacts and will be retrievable using a variety of search indexes.
The registry provides an important link between early adopters and the HL7 committees responsible for the v3 specifications being used. It provides a means for the committee to discover who is implementing their specifications, understand what is working and what improvements are needed, and to have an ongoing dialog with early adopters concerning potential solutions to perceived problems in the specification. The registry allows early adopters to learn from each other and to leverage each others work products and implementation solutions.
The Implementation Committee believes that the Early Adopter program will play an important role in assuring the quality and practical value of v3 specifications. The Implementation Committee explored additional aspects of the Early Adopter Program during the May 2004 Working Group Meeting. Among the topics discussed were how to best encourage participation in the Early Adopter program and how to express the appreciation HL7 has for the contributions made by v3 early adopters.