HL7 International Elects New Board Chair

Health Level Seven International (HL7), a global authority for interoperability and standards in HIT with members in 55 countries, recently announced the election of Stanley M. Huff, MD, as the chair of its board of directors.

“Dr. Huff’s dedication and hard work have earned him the role as a leader in health care IT,’ says Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD, CEO of HL7. “His steadfast support and passion for the advancement of HL7 spans nearly two decades, and we are very pleased to welcome him again as HL7 board chair. Dr. Huff is a visionary who brings a wealth of knowledge about medical vocabularies, clinical information models, medical database architectures, and service-based interoperability.”

Huff is the chief medical informatics officer at Intermountain Healthcare and a professor (clinical) in biomedical informatics at the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City. As the chief medical informatics officer at Intermountain, he has responsibility for the architecture and functions of all clinical information systems.

Huff brings to the role his extensive organizational experience with HL7 International, including a previous term as chair of the board (2000–2001). He has participated in the ONC Health Information Technology Standards Committee and held leadership roles on the LOINC Committee and the HL7 Vocabulary Technical Committee. Huff has also served on the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics and the International Health Terminology and Standards Development Organization.

“The health care industry is undergoing tremendous change and creating immense opportunities as it increasingly relies upon information technology. I look forward to keeping HL7 at the forefront of these changes,” says Huff. “I am especially excited about HL7’s newest standard, FHIR, and its potential to make health care interoperability systems dramatically faster and easier to develop.”

Huff also commented on HL7’s recent initiative to license HL7 standards free for use: “I fully support this policy, which removes many potential barriers to the adoption of HL7 standards worldwide. Keeping the organization financially stable will require HL7 to be creative in providing new services and value to members. I am committed to taking any steps necessary to keep HL7 financially stable, vibrant, and growing.”

Source: Health Level Seven International