HL7 Electronic Health Records Work Group

SWOT Analysis

May 11, 2016

Strengths

  • High interest nationally and internationally in use of electronic health records and personal health records
  • Excellent HL7 staff support
  • Good historical continuity in the current set of Work Group co-chairs
  • Building succession of strong leadership within the Work Group and in the development of new Work Groups
  • Long-term, continued participation by several volunteers
  • Access to Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), health information technology vendors and industry thought-leaders
  • Good focus on longterm tasks such as creating models and frameworks
  • Models, profiles and other work products are readily available to clinical, business, and technical communities
  • Visibility of EHR Work Group standards to the HL7 board and the healthcare industry
  • Introduces new opportunities to HL7 regarding public policy and other healthcare issues
  • Effective communication and outreach efforts
  • Alignment of functions and data related artifacts; excellent collaboration with other HL7 Work Groups
  • Excellent adoption by industry
  • Tooling to support work product creation, maintenance, and reuse

Weaknesses

  • Overuse/extensive use of the same volunteers
  • New attendees do not necessarily stay with the Work Groupand such do notbecome involved in activities
  • Limited international input and participation in Work Group efforts
  • Lack of administrative support for co-chair duties, e.g., notes and meeting announcements
  • Limited direct participation by healthcare providers
  • Continuing concerns about the scope and structure of the functional models---are they too granular/not granular enough

Opportunities

  • The ability to expand theuse of work products worldwide through HL7 Affiliates, associate organization agreements, ISO, and JIC
  • Increase the visibility of the Work Group products
  • The ability to influence Health Information Technology (HIT) public policy and market forces
  • The ability to accelerate the adoption of standards-based EHR and PHR systems
  • The ability to have the models and/or profiles named in realm legislation and regulation
  • Alignment with other PHR and EHR and possible future functional models
  • Implement professional certification of the EHR Work Group products and services

Threats

  • Costs for joining, registering and participation in face to faceWGM
  • Development of products by organizations or realms without reference to the HL7 standards
  • Fragmentation of EHR certification and governing authorities
  • EHR Work Group products not referenced in regulation or legislation
  • Competing initiatives that impede/exclude EHR Work Group products

Page 1 of 1