In this Issue HL7 News

HL7 News • Report on the IHIC2016 Conference
June 2016 Event Held in Italy for the First Time
Report on the IHIC2016 Conference
By IHIC2016 Co-Chairs
26
General Overview
The IHIC2016 conference
was the 16th in the history
of the International HL7
Interoperability Conferences
relating to all HL7 standards,
including their development,
adoption, implementation
and all implications within
the different types of health
information systems.
For the first time ever, the
conference was held in Italy at
the Polytechnical School of the
University of Genoa on June
13-15, 2016. It was organized by
HL7 Italy in collaboration with
HL7 Germany and was chaired
by Professor Bernd Blobel from
the University of Regensburg in
Germany and Professor Mauro
Giacomini from the University
of Genoa in Italy. IHIC2016 was
sponsored by HL7 International,
HL7 Germany, HL7 Italy, DIBRIS
(University of Genoa, Italy) and by
the Genoa Engineering Council.
IHIC2016 attracted more than 60
attendees from academia, industry
and students from 10 countries.
The conference included
seven tutorials, four keynote
presentations, 11 presentations
on full papers, four presentations
of technical reports and four
presentations on technical
abstracts. Finally, a late afternoon
workshop with 10 panelists
was held on June 14, 2016.
The Joachim W. Dudeck Award
is presented annually to a
researcher less than 35 years of
age presenting a scientific paper
at this conference. The award is
co-sponsored by HL7 International
and HL7 Germany. This year’s
recipient was Abderrazek Boufahja
from France. He contributed
the “Model-Based Validation
of HL7 CDA R2 Documents
and Implementation Guides
Using Gazelle ObjectsChecker
and ART-DECOR®”. The paper
was co-authored by Dr. Kai
Heitmann and Eric Poiseau.
HL7 Italy sponsored two prizes
for Italian students who graduated
in 2015 or 2016 with a master’s
thesis on standards in health
informatics. The winners were:
1. Luca Douglas Magnoni
from the University of
Genoa, with a thesis entitled
“Development and testing of
a standardized terminology
service by HL7 International
applied to the management
of semantics in laboratory
reports” (Supervisor: Mauro
Giacomini, Co-Supervisor:
Roberta Gazzarata); and
2. Elisa Maria Zini from the
University of Pavia, with a
thesis entitled “Extension
of the i2b2 framework for
extraction of qualitative
patterns from time series”
(Supervisor: Cristiana Larizza,
Co-Supervisors: Lucia
Sacchi, Matteo Gabetta).
The high level scientific papers
were published in a special
edition of the European Journal
for Biomedical Informatics
Bernd Blobel,
PhD, HL7
Germany and
Professor at
University of
Regensburg
(EJBI) entitled “Interoperability
is more than just technology”.
Technical reports and abstracts
were published in locally
printed proceedings books
(ISBN 9788894180602).
Scientific details of the
conference
Mauro Giacomini,
PhD, HL7 Italy
and Assistant
Professor at the
University of
Genoa
The scientific presentations were
divided into four sessions, each
with its own keynote presentation
as well as presentations on
the scientific papers, technical
reports and technical aspects.
The first session was entitled
“Paradigm Changes in Healthcare
and Resulting Interoperability
Challenges” with the keynote
by Bernd Blobel on the needs
of an architectural approach
to interoperability.
The second session concerned
the general HL7 perspectives and
began with a keynote by Riccardo
Bellazzi from Italy about data
integration strategies to meet
big data challenges through
decision support methods.
After this session, a workshop was
held in which multi-stakeholder
experts presented and discussed
their differing perspectives on
the perceived and experienced
gaps and bridging opportunities
between the regulatory and