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By Karen Van Hentenryck, HL7 International Executive Administrative Director

Membership Report

HL7 saw a downward trend in membership during 2023. We attribute the loss of members to two major factors:

Financial cutbacks following the pandemic
Mergers/acquisitions in the industry

The launch of HL7’s new customer relationship management (CRM) system also affected membership renewals as members were not used to the automated renewal message from our CRM versus those from our membership director in previous years. We expect renewals to improve in the coming year as members get used to the new CRM and staff become adept at using the many features of the CRM.
The table below summarizes membership trends over the last year.

A total of 66 new organizations joined HL7 in 2023, 15 being reactivations of previous members who had expired. 101 org members did not renew in 2023.
Total revenue from all forms of membership was $2,961,297 in 2023 vs.$3,578,197 in 2022.

Volunteers of the Year

In 2023, HL7 recognized four volunteers for their dedicated service to HL7. This year marks the 26th year that we have recognized such individuals via the W. Ed Hammond, PhD HL7 Volunteer of the Year Awards. Established in 1997, the award is named after Dr. Ed Hammond, one of HL7’s most active volunteers and a founding member as well as serving as HL7 Board Chair for three terms. The recipients of the 2023 HL7 Volunteer of the Year Awards included:

Rob Hausam, MD, FHL7, Hausam Consulting LLC
Mark Jaczewski, MD, President & CEO, Medical Networks, LLC
Rob McClure, MD, Retired member
Lisa Nelson, Principal Informaticist, ADVault, Inc.

Many thanks to these individuals for their contributions to HL7, and congratulations on being selected for this well-deserved award.

HL7 Fellows Class of 2023

The HL7 Fellowship program recognizes individuals with outstanding commitment and sustained contributions to HL7 with at least 15 years of active membership. The award name was officially changed in memory of HL7 founding member John Quinn, who served as the organization’s second Board Chair, the long-time Chair of the Technical Steering Committee, and the first Chief Technology Officer. During HL7’s 37th Plenary meeting, HL7 honored seven recipients of the John Quinn HL7 Fellowship Award. They are listed below:

Adam Chee, Chair, HL7 Singapore
Carmela Couderc, Clinical Integration Specialist, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT
Suzanne Gonzales-Webb, Senior Project Manager, Cognitive Medical Systems, Inc.
Charles Jaffe, MD, Chair, HL7 International
Joginder Madra, President, Madra Consulting Inc.
Mitra Rocca, Senior Medical Informatician, FDA
Daniel Vreeman, DPT, MS, FHL7, Chief Standards Development Officer, HL7 International

Recognition of Service

The success of the HL7 community is dependent on the contributions of members who volunteer their time across the organization, both in leadership roles and in the work of the work groups. We have numerous co-chairs, too many to list here, that organize and keep the work of our work groups moving forward, and we thank each of them for their hours of service.

Long-time Members

The following members are recognized for their many years of membership in and service to HL7:

Member for more than 30 years

Hans Buitendijk, FHL7
Gary Dickinson, FHL7
W. Ed Hammond, PhD, FHL7
Ted Klein FHL7
Virginia Lorenzi, FHL7
Clem McDonald, MD, FHL7
Charles Meyer, FHL7
Douglas Pratt, FHL7

Member for 25-29 years

Liora Alschuler, FHL7
Bernd Blobel, PhD, FHL7
Philip Caillouet, PhD
Durwin Day
Ray Duncan
Carl Dvorak
Peter Haug
Stan Huff, MD, FHL7
Tony Julian, FHL7
Chris Melo
Karen Nocera
Frank Oemig, FHL7
Vassil Peytchev, FHL7
AbdulMalik Shakir, FHL7
Rene Spronk, FHL7
Timo Tarhonen, FHL7
Franklin Wilcox

Long-time Affiliates

HL7 affiliates also play an important role in the success of the organization’s use of HL7 standards and educating professionals on how to implement such standards around the globe. We thank all our members in leadership positions for their invaluable contributions to HL7. Congratulations to the following affiliates who have been in operation for more than 20 years:

HL7 Australia
HL7 Brazil
HL7 Canada
HL7 China
HL7 Croatia
HL7 Finland
HL7 Germany
HL7 India
HL7 Japan
HL7 Korea
HL7 Netherlands
HL7 New Zealand
HL7 Switzerland
HL7 Taiwan
HL7 UK

Long Serving Staff

We also thank the many staff members who have supported HL7 for at least 15 years:

Lynn Laakso (16)
Dave Hamill (17)
Mary Ann Boyle (18)
Andrea Ribick (18)
Linda Jenkins (19)
Anne Wizauer (23)
Karen Van Hentenryck (27)
Mark McDougall (32)

Mark McDougall Retirement

Mark McDougall retired as Executive Director of HL7 on December 31, 2023, after 32 years of service. He helped grow the organization from a very humble beginning to the international organization it is today. We thank and honor Mark for his many years of service to HL7 and wish him all the best in his retirement.

Board Election Results

During HL7’s annual business meeting in September 2023, the results of the Board elections were announced for the HL7 Board of Director positions listed below. New Board members serve two-year terms beginning January 2024 through December 2025.
The recent HL7 Board election results are as follows:

Treasurer: John Hatem, FHL7, Interim Cospecialty Director of Healthcare Informatics, University of Colorado, College of Nursing, Anshutz Medical Campus.
Director: Josh Mandel, MD, Chief Architect, SMART Health IT; Chief Architect, Microsoft
Director: Marjorie Rallins, DPM, Executive Director, LOINC, Regenstrief Institute
Affiliate Director: Giorgio Cangioli, PhD, Technical Lead, HL7 Europe; vice chair, HL7 Italy
Affiliate Director: Fernando Campos, FHL7, Chair, HL7 Argentina; Software Engineering Area Chief, Health Informatics Department, Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires

Thank you and congratulations to these members for their service on the HL7 Board of Directors.

HL7 Technical Steering Committee Elections

Those elected to the HL7 Technical Steering Committee for the 2023-2024 term:

TSC Chair-Elect: Rick Geimer, FHL7, Chief Innovation Officer, Lantana Consulting Group
TSC Affiliate Representative: Alexander Zautke, Chief Technology Officer, HL7 Germany; Product Manager – Firely Server, Firely
TSC Implementer Representative: Jeff Brown, Healthcare Standards Advisory, Lantana Consulting Group
Work Group Representative: Riki Merrick, FHL7, Lead Specialist, Informatics Terminology, Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL)
Work Group Representative: Lloyd McKenzie, FHL7, Chief Standards Officer, Dogwood Health Consulting; Principal Consultant, LM&A Consulting Ltd.

HL7 International Council Co-Chairs Elections

One member was elected as the co-chair of the HL7 International Council for the 2024-2025 term:

Ron Parker, FHL7, HL7 Canada; Principal Consultant, Parker Digital Health Consulting Inc.

Meetings Report

January FHIR Connectathon and Working Group Meeting

In 2023, we met in person at the Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa in Henderson, NV. A total of 318 attended the Connectathon and 333 attended the WGM.

May FHIR Connectathon and Working Group Plus (WGM+ ) and Working Group Meeting

The May WGM was held at the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans, LA. This was our first Working Group Meeting Plus (WGM+) event where we held the working group meeting concurrently with other content that was designed to appeal to those not necessarily interested in standard development. The WGM+ part of the program was also offered virtually. A total of 349 attended the Connectathon while a total of 449 attended the WGM and WG+ event. Of the 449 participants that attended the WGM/WGM+, 49 of them attended virtually. The WGM+ event was very successful. In the future, we hope to offer the WGM+ at a time that does not conflict with the work group portion of the event, as many individuals wanted to attend both.

FHIR DevDays in June 6-9

DevDays 2023 was a hybrid event, with the in-person meeting held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. DevDays, whether held in the US or The Netherlands, is always a fun and exciting event. 350 participants attended in-person, and another 192 attended virtually for a total of 542 participants.
A recap of DevDays2023 can be found here: DevDays 2023 – DevDays

37th Annual Plenary & Working Group Meeting

The September Connectathon and the 37th annual Plenary and WGM were held at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown, in Phoenix, AZ. The theme of the plenary meeting was AI in Healthcare: Opportunities & Challenges.
There were several intriguing plenary presentations provided on Monday morning, including the following:

Peter Lee, PhD, Corporate Vice President, Research & Incubations, Microsoft
John Halamka, MD, MS, President, Mayo Clinic Platform
Government Panel, which included:
- Steve Posnack, MS, MHS, Deputy National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)
- Jose Galvez MD, Deputy Director of Strategic Programs, FDA
- Colonel Thomas Cantilina, MD, Defense Health Agency Chief Health Informatics Officer
Michael Pencina, Vice Dean for Data Sci3nce; Chief Data Scientist, Duke
Kenneth Goodman, PhD, Director Ethics Programs, Director Institute for Ethics and Health Policy, University of Miami
HL7 AI Standards – Laying the Foundation session which included the following speakers:
- Gary Dickinson FHL7, EHR Work Group Co-Chair, Co-Facilitator of the AI Focus Team
- Mark Janczewski MD, EHR Work Group Co-Chair, Co-Lead of the AI Data Lifecycle Project

A total of 339 participants attended the Connectathon in Phoenix, while 415 attended the Working Group Meeting.

Education Report

Online Classes

A total of 13 online classes were offered in 2023, including the following:

Applied FHIR for Designers
CCDA & CCDA on FHIR
Clinical Quality Language
HAPI FHIR
HL7 FHIR by Trial
HL7 FHIR for Healthcare Information Analysts
HL7 FHIR in the Clouds
HL7 FHIR Profiling
HL7 FHIR Terminology
How to Exchange Data between EHR Systems
Applied HL7 FHIR Questionnaire and Structured Data Capture
Referrals and Orders: How to Ask for Stuff in FHIR
SMART on FHIR & CDS Hooks

Webinars

The following six webinars were offered in 2023, serving 1,026 students:

FHIR 101 for the Policy Committee: March 30
Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) – the largest digital health initiative in India” – March 29
Global Spotlight: Marching Forward – Interoperability and Standards for Better Health – October 12 (part of World Standards Week)
Series of three Co-Chair Training: How to be an Effective Co-Chair
- Leading through Facilitation
- Navigating HL7 Processes for Work Groups Co-Chairs
- Reflect and Review Your Co-chair role
TSC Updates: June and October
HL7 FHIR: The Future of Interoperability. Now. A series of 10 webinars from our Executives

We also offered one sponsored webinar in 2023 titled Data Quality in Healthcare: How FHIR Profiles Can Help. Sponsored by Edenlab in Ukraine, this webinar attracted 832 registrants (not included in the 1,026 total above).

Asynchronous Courses

The following asynchronous courses were offered in 2023, serving 1,097 students:

HL7 Fundamentals in February, May and September
HL7 FHIR Fundamentals in April, July and September
HL7 FHIR Intermediate in February, June and September
HL7 FHIR Proficiency in March, June and September
V2 to FHIR Mapping Course in May and September

Education on Demand

Education on Demand refers to several courses that the community can access from their own workstations. These may be free recordings from our HIMSS booth of presentations provided as part of our Working Group Meetings or other events, or they may be courses available for purchase, as they are recordings of paid webinars. A total of 706 users accessed HL7’s Education on Demand during 2023.

CMS HL7 FHIR Connectathon

HL7 hosted the CMS Connectathon July 18-20, 2023. There were 14 tracks in this very successful Connectathon, which included 85 speakers and 606 participants.

HL7 FHIR Security Event

HL7 held its first FHIR Security event August 8-9, 2023. Organization by our Implementation Division, this educational offering provided two tracks, one for the general audience and another for developers. This very successful event included 33 speakers, and 176 registrations.

Total Revenue from Meetings

As summarized in the table below, our educational offerings are a key revenue stream for the organization

Total Revenue from Member, Meetings and Education

Revenue Source Revenue Generated in 2023
Membership $2,961,297
Meetings & Events $1,411,902
Education $1,114,104
TOTAL $5,487,303

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