An ebXML study meeting of ISO/TC 215 took place during the HL7 working group meetings on 8th January 2007 (Monday) in San Diego, USA.

ISO TC 215 (health informatics) is conducting a study on the use ebXML for the health area. This was triggered by a discussion at the management group of the MoU on electronic business of ISO and other standards organizations and consortia. Today, there is almost no reuse or shared development between the health standards domain (with influence of HL7 increasing in the ISO world, with some HL7 specifications becoming ISO standards) and other ebusiness standards in areas like process/information modelling, methodologies, vocabulary design, core components, XML methods, design, security, messaging and other infrastructure specifications. This complicates links from the health sector to other sectors (e-procurement, health insurance).

ISO TC 215 contacted OASIS and its members to help them with this study. This request resulted in various OASIS members participating in the ebXML CPA, IIC, Registry and Messaging Technical Committees to attend a joint meeting at the HL7 / ISO TC 215 conference in San Diego. They explained the ebXML concepts and its components to an international health informatics audience. The meeting is intended to lead to a follow-on work and a recommendation to be presented at a subsequent meeting in March 2007 in Montreal.

Healthcare is already one of the main sectors adopting parts of the ebXML framework, with large strategic initiatives in the United Kingdom, Norway and other countries using ebXML Messaging for healthcare integration. The Integrating the Health Enterprise technical frameworks also make extensive use of ebXML, registry in particular, and are used in many countries around the globe.