HL7 Working Group Meeting:
An Experience in Social Networking

In the early meetings of HL7, the attendees met together—there were no breakouts. Soon, however, the amount of work to be accomplished and the interests of the participants resulted in simultaneous meetings focused mainly on orders (mostly lab); demographics and administration; and structure and form. Even so, agendas were arranged so that key topics could be discussed by all attendees without conflict.

Over the years, the number of "independent" work groups increased, seemingly without limit. There were some communications among groups, but the work was largely focused on specific areas. As HL7 continued to grow in both numbers and interests, the number of technical committees and special interest groups grew as well. The groups met independently, but the necessity of having joint sessions became obvious. At a typical HL7 Working Group Meeting today, well over one-third of the meetings are joint meetings among two or more work groups. When it is not always clear where specific work needs to be done, there is unfortunately also overlapping and redundancy in work. It was, and still is, difficult to be aware of all the work underway in HL7. Charlie McCay and the Technical Steering Committee have started a TSC Newsletter that should improve communications among the work groups. Projects and project teams have been introduced in an attempt to focus the work on specific areas and topics rather than on a specific work group.

As the need for enhanced communication among participants increased, HL7 implemented new methods for sharing information. Among the first methods were out-of-cycle meetings and list servers. Conference calls range from weekly in some groups to monthly in others. More recently, wikis, webinars, and other social networking technologies have increased the ease of staying in touch and in doing productive and informed work. Recently, there were discussions of HL7 having "virtual" meetings. Such meetings would likely save money and perhaps time. Travel and hotel costs would be avoided. However, what would we be missing? Well, think about a typical Working Group Meeting. How often is there the need to grab someone in a hall conversation to obtain some information? Morning and afternoon breaks often provide critical communication opportunities—some planned and some happenstance. The Neotool party, the Wednesday reception, the dinners with a pickup group, the gatherings at the bar for that last beer—to me, that is what social networking is all about. Technology is great, but it just can’t beat the face-to-face meeting.

W. Ed Hammond, Ph.D.
Chairman of the Board, Health Level Seven, Inc®

Register Today!
Cover Page | Letter from the Chairman | Key Info | Student Accessibility
| Plenary Info | Networking Reception | Tutorial Info