Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:Terese Finitzo
tfinitzo@oz-systems.com
214-631-6161, ext. 302

OZ Systems CEO and VP Appointed to HL7 Special Interest Groups

ANN ARBOR, Mich.- 2004 - OZ Systems CEO Ken Pool and VP Terese Finitzo were appointed to key Health Level 7 (HL7) Special Interest Groups (SIG) for Public Health and for Pediatrics Data Standards. 

HL7 is one of several American National Standards Institute (ANSI) –accredited Standards Developing Organizations operating in the healthcare arena. Special interest groups serve as a test bed for exploring new areas that may need coverage in HL7’s published standards.

The Public Health SIG develops models and messages that address the requirements of many government and non-governmental agencies involved in population-based and public health surveillance and response activities. Specific areas of interest include event detection, outbreak investigation, population health monitoring, disease/condition case reporting, environmental observations related to health issues, emergency coordination, and legal. The SIG specifically takes into account the need for real-time interactions and the experiences of existing national and international messaging initiatives.

The mission of the Pediatric Data Standards SIG is to define pediatric data standards required for interchange of standardized and comparable national pediatric performance measurement. Specifically, this group is charged to:

• Identify critical pediatric-specific data standards necessary for standardized quality and outcomes reporting and measuring
• Identify and promote required terminology to support reporting and measurement
• Create nomenclature lexicon to meet vendor and clinical decision support needs
• Coordinate and cooperate with other groups interested in using pediatric data standards
• Enable and promote use of these standards nationally

HL7 is an international community of healthcare subject matter experts and information scientists collaborating to create standards for the exchange, management and integration of electronic healthcare information. HL7 promotes the use of such standards within and among healthcare organizations to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare delivery for the benefit of all. For more information, visit www.hl7.org.

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