ANN ARBOR, MI – Health Level Seven® International (HL7), the global authority for interoperability and standards in healthcare information technology with members in 55 countries, today announced the appointment of Doug Fridsma, MD, PhD, director of the Office of Interoperability and Standards, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), to the HL7 Board of Directors.

HL7 CEO Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD, said “More than ever, HL7 recognizes the importance of collaboration with the ONC to further the goal of achieving nationwide standards-based interoperability. HL7 is fortunate to have Dr. Fridsma's participation in its Board of Directors. Not only will this help support the mission of both organizations, we also believe that his experience in healthcare informatics will drive our mutual objective of improved patient care.”

Dr. Fridsma served on the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) Board of Directors from 2005-2008, and was appointed to the HIT Standards Committee in 2009. He resigned from the Health IT Standards Committee when he joined ONC. Prior to his position at ONC, Dr. Fridsma also had a clinical practice at the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale and taught in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Arizona State University.

Dr. Fridsma completed his medical training at the University of Michigan in 1990 and his PhD in Biomedical Informatics from Stanford University in 2003.  His research interests include the development of computational tools to study patient safety, clinical work processes, and methods to improve model-driven standards development processes.

“I am looking forward to working with HL7 as a member of the Board of Directors,” said Dr. Fridsma. “I believe this will provide an opportunity to strengthen collaboration around shared goals that HL7 and the federal government have to improve patient care through the use of interoperable health information exchange.”
 
About Health Level Seven International (HL7)
Founded in 1987, Health Level Seven International is the global authority for healthcare information interoperability and standards with affiliates established in more than 30 countries. 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. HL7’s more than 2,300 members represent approximately 500 corporate members, which include more than 90 percent of the information systems vendors serving healthcare. HL7 collaborates with other standards developers and provider, payer, philanthropic and government agencies at the highest levels to ensure the development of comprehensive and reliable standards and successful interoperability efforts.
 
HL7’s endeavors are sponsored, in part, by the support of its benefactors: Abbott; Accenture; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Duke Translational Medicine Institute; Epic; European Medicines Agency; the Food and Drug Administration; GE Healthcare Information Technologies; GlaxoSmithKline; IBM; Intel Corporation; InterSystems Corporation; Kaiser Permanente; Lockheed Martin; McKesson Provider Technology; Microsoft Corporation; NICTIZ National Healthcare; Novartis; Oracle Corporation; Partners HealthCare System, Inc.; Pfizer, Inc.; Philips Healthcare; Quest Diagnostics Inc.; Siemens Healthcare; Thomson Reuters; the U.S. Department of Defense, Military Health System; and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
 
Numerous HL7 Affiliates have been established around the globe including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, and Uruguay.
 
For more information, please visit: www.HL7.org.