Belgium

Current Logo

Year of establishment

2020

Number of members

Approximately 20 members from industry, hospitals, governmen

Current Chair

José Costa Teixeira: Working in healthcare since 2001 and living in Belgium since 2009 - and being an active contributor to SDOs like HL7, IHE, ISO, DICOM... since that same year, José has been a promoter of standardization in healthcare (in Belgium and other countries), using a rapid and early adoption of standards.

Technical Lead and working groups

Technical Leads are Robin Bosman, Karlien Erauw and José Costa Teixeira.
Currently HL7 Belgium organizes the following working groups:

• Medication
• Referral prescription
• Security
• Validation

Some highlights and major achievements - since establishment

Cooperation with government institutions

• Several government institutions have been pushing for standardization and were decisive in the formation and launch of HL7 Belgium: eHealth, VAZG, RIZIV/INAMI, RSW. Since the formation of the standardization groups, the number of projects and companies joining HL7 discussions - to join the work, to launch new projects or simply to check some ideas - is growing. HL7 is getting recognition as a support group where experts collaborate around a topic and produce normative or informative content. The Belgian eHealth Architecture Work Group and other recognized groups are partnering with HL7 for several initiatives.
• We have successfully agreed on a collaboration process between HL7 Belgium and the different organizations for standardization using FHIR - from proposal to legal acceptance.

Project Highlights

• Several projects: eHealth Federal platform - core BE FHIR profiles, VAZG (Flemish Agency for care and health) - DZOP (Digital Care and Support platform). RIZIV/INAMI - Several projects to enhance the current interoperability architecture. While these are emerging projects, the Belgian initiatives have resulted in a good engagement with the international community and a great uptake domestically.

Events, e.g. IHIC

• Organization of a Projectathon / Plugathon (scheduled for March 2020, delayed for safety reasons)
• Several training events
• Several weekly meetings.
• Participation in DevDays and Connectathon

Plans for the future?

• HL7 Belgium wants to be recognized as a work partner that can provide advice and accelerate standardization and consequently improve time to market and safety of connected health systems.
• Tactically, we want to: Grow and sustain the HL7 implementer community; Gather healthcare standardization efforts; continue to affirm the role of an open, independent group like HL7 Belgium. Contribute to the FHIR community and make Belgium FHIR adoption a good showcase for rapid and good adoption of a new standard.