The Public Health Data Standards Consortium (Consortium) is a not-for-profit membership-based organization of federal, state and local government agencies; professional associations; and public and private sector organizations established to develop, promote, and implement national standards for population health practice and research. The Consortium's mission is to bring a common voice from the public health community to the national efforts of standardization of health information.

To fulfill its mission the Consortium will:

• Promote the integration of health-related data systems to meet the health data needs of public and private organizations, agencies and individuals;
• Represent public health interests (state and local agencies and research communities) in the on-going processes of the development and implementation of national healthcare standards by involvement in the activities of the existing clinical, administrative, and other relevant data standards development and content organizations;
• Identify priorities for the development and implementation of new national data standards for population health, including standardization of environmental, socio-cultural, economic and other data relevant to population health;
• Educate public health community about standards and standard development community about public health data needs; and
• Participate in the international efforts on standardization of health-related information.

The activities of the Consortium support the full array of public health interests in the development of a nationwide health information network including: developing a set of interactive privacy tables and flowcharts to provide helpful guidance for applying the range of privacy requirements in all the public health functions of provider, payer, and public health authority; creating educational materials on using external cause of injury codes; and participation in national efforts to develop, prototype, and evaluate a widely accepted and useful set of health IT standards that will support interoperability among health care software applications, particularly EHRs.

For more information about the Public Health Data Standards Consortium and its activities, or to learn more about joining the organization, please visit their Web site at www.phdsc.org

Oz Systems participates in the support of HL7's efforts in developing a cost-effective approach to system connectivity. Involvement and support from organizations like Oz Systems have been and continue to be crucial to the ongoing expansion and enhancement of the HL7 standard and the overall success of the organization.

For more infromation about HL7, please visit their Web site at www.hl7.org

Our membership with HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) is important to us, HIMSS helps in our advancement of new information systems, innovative telecommunications technology, methods of collaboration between disciplines, and quality improvement. Together with HIMSS we will move forward to the future -- in our careers, in the industry, and for the betterment of human healthcare.

For more infromation about HIMSS, please visit their Web site at www.himss.org.