Standards Standards

Infoway's Standards Centre is the single source of truth for access to the various recommended, adopted, adapted, implemented and used health information standards in Canada today.

Links to the organizations that define the mandated or recommended standards for use in health care in Canada.

The Standards Knowledge Management Tool (SKMT) is an online glossary used by ISO and HL7 International and Canada Health Infoway.

Please visit the HL7 Balloting Calendar page for the latest ballot cycle deadlines for the current year, including the voting schedules.

For each ballot cycle there is a forum post in the HL7 Community that serves a reminder and invitation to submit any comments for the ballot and join the HL7 Canada Council ballot review meetings for voting direction.

Only registered voting members currently have access to the ballot materials and desktop on HL7.org. To request access to view the ballot materials, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can also view the HL7 Ballot information page for further details.

Participating in a ballot – HL7 Canada Members

• For each ballot cycle, the HL7 Canada Council Chair will create a package with all ballots along with a comment spreadsheet for each item. The ballot package will be announced in the HL7 Canada Community forum and the package will be made available for download from the Documents tab.
• Submit your ballot comment spreadsheet by uploading it into Documents tab in the HL7 Canada Community and replying to the most current ballot forum post.
• You may submit a ballot comment spreadsheet as many times as you like for each ballot pool up to the Canadian closing date. However, please note that your new submission will overwrite your old submission file.
• All comments submitted by HL7 Canada members will be consolidated into a single spreadsheet. The HL7 Canada Council will meet to review comments and decide how to vote and the voting members will vote as a block. If there are no comments received for a ballot, the vote will be registered as Abstain.

Participating in a ballot – HL7 International Members

• As a HL7 International Member, please visit http://www.hl7.org/participate/onlineballoting.cfm?ref=na. There is a helpful pdf document in the Member Balloting Instructions box.
• HL7 International is moving towards balloting using their JIRA Balloting tool. More information about this tool and how to use it can be found here: https://www.pathlms.com/hl7/courses/30595 or in the Tools box on this page: https://confluence.hl7.org/display/HE/HL7+Essentials

For additional guidance or further questions, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Health Level Seven (HL7) Standards in Canada are regulated through an international agreement with HL7 International Inc., co-owners of the intellectual property. Under the HL7 Affiliate Agreement, Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) is the legal signatory authority and host of HL7 Canada.

As per the Affiliates agreement, the HL7 Canada Council is responsible for voting on HL7 technical and administrative ballots and board positions.

Additionally, the HL7 Canada Council is responsible for:

• Promoting and supporting the use of HL7 related pan-Canadian health information standards.
• Promoting and supporting the domestic and international harmonization of HL7 standards to enable the sharing of health information in Canada.
• Ensuring that consensus positions, advice and decisions are reached with appropriate consultation and in an open, transparent and accountable manner without a preponderance of influence by any one stakeholder group.

Compositions and Elections:

The membership of the HL7 Canada Council serves a term of two years, after which an election shall be held. An elected member can be re-elected for an unlimited number of terms. The nomination period will commence every year in mid January. Each year there will be two Member at Large positions open for election, one for a public sector representative and one for a private sector representative. Every two years, there will be an election for the HL7 Canada Affiliate Chair position.

Nominations

Eligible candidates may be nominated or may choose to self-nominate during the designated nomination period, by:

1. completing and uploading a Nomination Form in the HL7 Community Documents (designated folder) and
2. posting a reply to the Elections forum post alerting the HL7 Community of the official submission.

When the nomination period closes, all submissions will be consolidated by Infoway in preparation for balloting.

Voting

Voting is hosted on InfoCentral. Each member of the HL7 Canada InfoCentral community is entitled to submit a single, confidential vote for each of the candidate positions across the community/stakeholder groups represented. If there is only one candidate for a position, a vote will not be necessary, and the candidate will be appointed to the HL7 Canada Council. The successful candidates will be selected by simple majority.

The elected Council will be announced in the HL7 Canada Community via a forum post.

Ballots: HL7 Canada Voting Members

The HL7 Canada Council is responsible for voting on HL7 technical and administrative ballots and board positions.

As per the Affiliates agreement, the total number of voting members is determined by the number of paid HL7 Canada members (number of seats equals 10 per cent of total dues). Currently HL7 Canada has four votes on international ballots, based on the HL7 Canada Affiliate membership.

The voting positions are determined in the following manner:

• HL7 Affiliate Chair holds one vote
• The Infoway representative holds one vote
• The two remaining voters are elected annually by the HL7 Canada council and ideally include a newly elected HL7 Canada Council member, as well as a member who is partway through their two-year term.

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Manage your HL7 International Access preferences.

Most standards and tools are available at no cost to users with an active Infoway account except for use of HL7 International materials. 

Infoway co-ordinates the Affiliate Agreement with HL7 International for Canadians interested in HL7 Canada Affiliate Membership.