Peter Jordan, HL7 New Zealand and Colin McKenzie, Sysmex New Zealand
Sysmex New Zealand is honoured to have been chosen as the winner of the 2019 HL7 Standards Implementer Award. Announced
at the HiNZ conference in Claudelands, Hamilton at the end of November, the HL7 Standards Implementer Award celebrates
25 years of the implementation of HL7 international standards to facilitate health information exchange in New Zealand.
As the award was presented to Sysmex New Zealand Sales Director Colin McKenzie by HL7 New Zealand Chair and Co-Chair of
the HL7 International Council Peter Jordan, details about Sysmex New Zealand’s contribution to the adoption of HL7
standards in New Zealand were relayed by Greg Ward, conference MC.
“HL7 standards have been used in New Zealand for 25 years and throughout that period Sysmex New Zealand has consistently
implemented these standards in their products, evangelised HL7 standards in the broader digital health community and
offered continuous support for the local HL7 affiliate, known since 2004 as HL7 New Zealand.”
Sysmex New Zealand’s support of HL7 standards and HL7 New Zealand involves a team of highly skilled and knowledgeable
individuals working continuously behind the scenes. Each passionately advocates that our products communicate with each
other as well as with other health IT systems used in New Zealand and overseas. This steadfast support also includes two
staff members sitting on the HL7 New Zealand board. Sysmex New Zealand Chief Architect Graeme Hibbert has served for
four years, having just stepped down this year, and Senior Software Consultant David Fallas has served since the
inception of HL7 New Zealand.
Advancements in the sharing of health data between disparate information systems is a major focus for Sysmex New Zealand
and aligns with the Ministry of Health’s 2016 New Zealand Health Strategy for ‘all New Zealanders to live well, stay
well and get well’. The easier exchange of health information is critical to the success of this vision, as is the
necessity for interoperability to ensure open access to healthcare providers and patients.
Sysmex New Zealand has led the way with numerous initiatives in support of this vision over the last 25 years, including
development of the Delphic laboratory information system to enable laboratories to send high quality, standardised and
secure health information as HL7 messages, facilitating reporting to practice management systems, hospital systems and
national registries, as well as the expansion of regional Eclair clinical data repositories, incorporating diagnostic
and clinical data from an increasing number of external systems to provide a more complete patient record.
Looking to the future, Sysmex New Zealand is focused on continuing development with the next generation of messaging via
HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). This standard created by HL7 International describes data
formats, elements and an application programming interface for exchanging electronic health records.
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