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The adoption of this standard will increase the use of electronic healthcare data, says Chair of the HL7 Board of Directors

Health Level Seven (HL7), the global authority for interoperability and standards in healthcare information technology announced its Version 2.5 messaging standard has been approved as an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). HL7 Version 2.5 allows interoperability between electronic health record systems, practice management systems, laboratory IT systems, dietary, pharmacy and billing systems. It serves as a vehicle for disparate healthcare IT systems, applications and data architectures operating in diverse-system environments to communicate with each other. It is designed to support a central patient care system, as well as a more distributed environment where data resides in departmental systems.

HL7 is a non-profit, ANSI accredited standards development organization dedicated to providing a comprehensive framework and related standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information that supports clinical practice and the management, delivery and evaluation of health services. Numerous HL7 Affiliates have been established around the globe including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia,Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland,Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, and Uruguay.

HL7 standards are accepted and approved through the ISO Technical Committee 215 – Health Informatics. HL7 can share its products with the international standards community, thus reducing the need for duplicative work. HL7 standards are widely used by healthcare software vendors that sell their health information technology products internationally. HL7’s Version 2.5 received ANSI approval as an American National Standard on June 26, 2003.

“We are pleased that HL7’s Version 2.5 is now an international standard,” said W. Ed Hammond, PhD, chair of the HL7 Board of Directors. “The adoption of this standard will increase the use of electronic healthcare data because many countries that use standards mandate the use of ISO standards to share data, reduce redundancies and improve patient care.” He added

Source: Health Level Seven, Inc.