Health Level Seven, the global authority on standards for interoperability of health information technology with members in 57 countries, has added Hong Kong to its growing number of more than 30 affiliates.
HL7 Hong Kong was officially launched Thursday in front of 600 attendees during the opening ceremony of the eHealth Forum 2009 at the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine.
"The success of Health Level Seven and the extensive global implementation of its standards are due in large part to the significant contributions from our affiliate members around the world," said HL7 CEO Charles Jaffe, MD. "The skills of many individuals in Hong Kong will bring an invaluable addition to HL7. We welcome HL7 Hong Kong to the organization and look forward to them promoting greater adoption of health informatics standards in Asia and participating in the development of HL7 standards."
HL7 Hong Kong is chaired by Chun-Por Wong, MD, chairman of Hong Kong Society of Medical Informatics and co-chairman of the executive committee of the eHealth Consortium in Hong Kong. Wong also serves as chairman of the Clinical Informatics Program Executive Group of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority and is a clinician currently appointed as the consultant geriatrician and chief of integrated medical services at Ruttonjee and Tang Shiu Kin Hospitals in Hong Kong.
Instrumental in the development of medical informatics in Hong Kong, Wong founded the Hong Kong Society of Medical Informatics in 1986, is the immediate past president of the Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics (APAMI), co-founded the eHealth Consortium in Hong Kong and has been active in the International Medical Informatics Association since 1989. He is also a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Medical Informatics and the Asia Pacific electronic Journal of Health Informatics.
Hong Kong is developing a territory-wide, patient-oriented electronic health record.
"Adopting relevant standards to optimize workflow, reduce ambiguity and enhance knowledge transfer among all stakeholders, including healthcare providers, government agencies, the vendor community and patients is crucial to the EHR development," said Wong. "Establishing HL7 Hong Kong is an important milestone in unifying the e-health development in Hong Kong and will enable the e-health community to accomplish this target. We will engage our partners from the healthcare and information technology sectors to adopt a set of standards that can meet local needs for supporting a truly interoperable system where all records can be shared across all sectors."
Like HL7, Inc., HL7 Hong Kong is an open, not-for-profit and consensus-based organization. Each affiliate contributes to the development of core HL7 standards through participation in work groups and the standards voting process, then localizes the standards to its specific requirements. Affiliates also support and distribute the HL7 standards in their country, produce translations and implementation guides for their users and participate in HL7 work groups.
