Small but Mighty
HL7 Austria's annual assembly has become an insider’s guide to the eHealth community. This small but mighty event was held on March 15, 2017 at its regular location, the Heuriger, a local winemaker’s tavern, with a record attendance of more than 100 participants. The annual assembly included a a full day of presentations with timley information, education and networking. We also celebrated the 10th anniversary of HL7 Austria.
More than 20 speakers from four countries delivered engaging talks on the importance of standardization and HL7 in the eHealth area. The presentations covered a wide range of topics that demonstrated what goals have already been accomplished and what work still needs to be done to support interoperable electronic health data exchange in the future.
HL7 Projects in Europe
This event focused on the role of HL7 and standardization in Austrian projects, including the ELGA, the e-Immunization Record, the Survivorship-Passport for oncology patients and the Austrian eHealth-Telemonitoring Platform. In addition, international and EU projects were also presented by Catherine Chronaki and Phlipp Scott.
Bernd Blobel gave an overview of general requirements for interoperability and a comparison of the major HL7 versions, including differences between HL7 Version 2 and Version 3, Cinical Document Architecture (CDA® R2) tools and implementation guides for the first projects using HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®). Alternative topics like a general view of integrated care and the role of eHealth for the ICT landscape in Austria and Europe provided an interesting mix of information for attendees.
What's New
HL7 Austria works hard to offer a dense program with relevant and timely topics. This year, we introduced a new presentation format, reffered to as the flashlights. The flashlights were comprised of multiple five-minute presentations about the key facts of a subject. The event also offered two well-attended workshops on HL7 Version 2 and HL7 FHIR® the day before and after the conference.
Student Recognition
A special highlight of this event for the past five years has been the Student Award ceremony. HL7 Austria awards a prize to students for their bachelor, master and/or PhD degree theses on HL7 standards. The winners receive a monetary award and have the opportunity to present their work to the public.
10 Years of Memories
The annual assembly concluded with Technical Committee Chair, Alexander Mense, joining me on stage to share memories from the last 10 years of HL7 Austria. Our talk began with the initial spark from Frank Oemig of HL7 Germany to create HL7 Austria and covered the numerous balloting activities, eLearning courses, and other events we've hosted up to the current one.
At the end, we acknowledged that HL7 Austria - it’s not us alone and it’s not the board – is you and all the people and organizations who have supported us over the last 10 years with your work and engagement! Thank you very much!
You can review the twitter timeline if you search the hash tag #HL7JT2017.
You may also view the photo gallery online at: http://www.hl7.at/das-war-die-jahrestagung-2017/#tab-id-2
