ConCall-20070403

T3F - Transitional Technical Task Force

Tuesday Apr 3, 2007 12:00 PM (US Eastern Time, GMT -5)

Present

Beeler, Blobel, Buitendijk, Case, Hamil, Lorenzi, McCaslin, McCay, Parker, Quinn, Walker

Roll Call, Accept agenda, Minute approval

Revised agenda and accepted minutes from March 27.

Resolution with regard to CTO/TCO

The following motion was presented, discussed and approved unanimously. It formalizes discussions on the role of the HL7 "Chief Technology Officer" and that role's relationship to the prospective Technical Directorate.

Motion as adopted

WHEREAS:

• The task of over-seeing and coordinating the technical activities of Health Level Seven requires the full-time attention of a knowledgeable professional, "Technical Officer";
• The effective coordination of the various committees and SIGs requires a restructuring of these into three or four sub-groups reporting to an elected Technical Directorate;
• The Technical Directorate must assure the continued involvement and support of HL7's Core Resource - volunteer-driven Working Group; and
• The success of the Technical Directorate and the success of the "Technical Officer" are inextricably intertwined, and, further, are essential to HL7's success;

THEREFORE, the Transitional Technical Task Force RESOLVES to recommend:

• The "Technical Officer" should be recruited to work with and support the Technical Directorate in its responsibilities to oversee HL7's technical activities;
• The "Technical Officer" should report to the CEO and the HL7 Board, and should be a voting member of the Technical Directorate.
• The Chair of the Technical Directorate should be be elected by the voting members of the Technical Directorate, and selected from within the members of the Technical Directorate.
• The Technical Directorate and its Chair should delegate responsibilities and operational decision-making (to be defined later) to the "Technical Officer."
• The Technical Directorate should have a role in recruiting and evaluating the "Technical Officer."

Status of "ISO Data Types" DSTU released in current ballot

The T3F was asked to consider the request from InM that the DSTU entitled "ISO Data Types, Release 1" be changed to "Draft" status. The T3F and Charlie McCay discussed the background of the document.

• It is prepared as the "data types" portion of the "New" UML/XML ITS being prepared by the ITS SIG.
• It was presented to and adopted at the International Collaboration Meeting in San Diego as the first formal effort to harmonize the data types requirements of HL7, CEN (European Standards) and ISO.
• InM agreed (either at or shortly after the San Diego meeting) that the ITS SIG should prepare this document for ballot as a DSTU in this cycle.
• The document format uses the "ISO" standard template, which surprised some. Note, however, that its content is entirely within HL7, and the ISO/HL7 RIM is also published in this format,
• The document title was changed for ISO.
• The "wrapper" document in the ballot provides both a hyperlink to the PDF containing the DSTU, and a link to the discussion of this material on the Wiki.

In its discussion, InM was concerned about three issues - format, due process, the reference to the Wiki-pages. In discussion, the T3F agreed that neither the format nor the Wiki reference were sufficient reasons to alter the status of the document.

With regard to the "process" issues, the T3F adopted the following motion:

The T3F recommends to InM that it allow this document to continue under ballot as a DSTU. The reasons include the following:

• Given the discussions on this topic at the last two WGMs the general content should not be a surprise to any one.
• Its "announcement" at the joint HL7-ISO-CEN Meeting in San Diego, coupled with its subsequent submission to both ISO and CEN for voting would make a change in status at this time embarassing for HL7.
  • (It has been circulated for "global" voting by the member bodies (countries)of both CEN and ISO, and their responses will be returned to the ITS SIG for resolution under the terms of the HL7/ISO Pilot Project Agreement.)

Clearly, InM has "the final say" in whether to continue the request to change the static, but the T3F asks that Headquarters not change the status until after InM has had a chance to reconsider.

As an aside, the T3F does recommend collecting the Wiki informative material in a separate PDF file for reference by voters.

Cologne Logistics

The Transition Steering Committee is planning a series of five-minute presentations by each of the Transition Task Groups during the "general sessions" on Monday and Tuesday in Cologne. The T3F Chair will be expected to present one of these.

Craig Parker agreed to contact HQ to determine what other meeting space has been provided for the T3F.