Call for co-chair election, and nomination(s)

[James Bryce Clark <jamie.clark@oasis-open.org>]

Members of the OASIS International Health Continuum TC:

     I am pleased to report that Dr. DeLeys Brandman has confirmed that she 
will be able to continue serving as chair of this committee.  We appreciate 
the leadership she has provided to the important work of this committee, 
especially as tremendous demand builds for practical, robust methods to use 
standardized data structures to address a variety of core health 
informatics needs.
     The IHC TC defined some early work plans for progress towards 
standardized approaches to EHRs and several other key use cases, but has 
deferred meeting for the past few months.  Now OASIS is being approached to 
provide substantial assistance by applying and specifying combination of 
its existing and developing data standards, along with other suitable open 
standards, to fully solve these needs.  My colleague Dr. Brett Trusko, this 
TC's OASIS staff contact, has been in close contact with multiple other 
national an international health informatics standards bodies, who are 
quite interested in working closely with OASIS -- and our considerable 
stable of existing, useful work in XML, access control, messaging, 
registries, structured data, knowledge management and other relevant 
functions.  We would like to have the IHC TC act as a focal point for this 
input and assistance.
     To rise to this challenge will require significant investment of 
leadership time.    In order to supplement the time available from Dr. 
Brandman and Dr. Trusko, Dr. Brandman asked me to open a ballot for the 
election of a co-chair for this committee. I declare nominations open for 
that role, and am pleased to report that Peter L. Elkin, MD, a member of 
this committee, has indicated that he will accept Dr. Brandman's nomination.
     Dr Elkin is Professor of Medicine, and the Director of the Laboratory 
of Biomedical Informatics, at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, in 
Rochester, Minnesota.  We appreciate the willingness of Dr. Elkin and the 
Mayo Clinic to make his time available to help lead this effort.  OASIS 
staff have made inquiries about other potential candidates as well.
      Of course, election of a co-chair is a matter for the committee to 
decide.  TC members are welcome to nominate or suggest others, and should 
do so to me directly or to this list.  However, if I am aware of no other 
nominees, then I will plan to conduct an election ballot. Accordingly, 
failing objections, I plan to open a ballot next week, for a duration of 
one week, which will list each declared candidate as well as permit 
write-in nominations.  In the interim, I will review the TC records to 
confirm that the voting status of each member is properly reflected in the 
roster.
      This timing would allow a conference call meeting in mid-October for 
future planning, in time to respond to some specific opportunities in 
November and December.  It may also be helpful for the TC to hear a report 
on the currently-forming US Health Information Technology Standards Panel, 
whose imminent first meeting will produce key timelines for additional 
standards-scoping opportunities.  While this is a matter for the TC to 
decide, we will suggest that in October you also consider a face-to-face 
meeting during the 4th quarter 2005, to cement and articulate the TC's 
workplan for its specific deliverables.
      As always, we deeply appreciate your contributions to our e-health 
work as well as your support for open standardization.  We look forward to 
talking with you at the TC's next meeting.
      Best regards  Jamie Clark

~   James Bryce Clark
~   Director, Standards Development, OASIS
~   jamie.clark@oasis-open.org