I’m fresh from the EHR Collaborative field meeting in Dallas on August 20th. It was an interesting meeting in that there was obviously a great deal of interest in having a standardized health record (nothing new) with high-level political support which is new. The meeting consisted of some presentations along with going over a written functional specification at a very high level and asking everyone if there were suggestions, changes and what functions were considered ‘essential for version 1.0’ The use of Free and Open Source licenses for implementations was not included in the functional specification, but it was suggested by me at this meeting and may have been suggested by others at other meetings.

The final report from the field meetings will be posted August 25th to the ehrcollaboratove.org site. Balloting for the final revised version will occur on the HL7 web site. The draft ballot can be downloaded for free, but to actually cast a vote will cost $100. Balloting will be closed on September 5th followed by a meeting September 7-12th in Memphis to discuss the results of the vote on the functional specification.