"John S. Gage" wrote: > Questions born out of ignorance: is HL7 v3 proprietary? Does one have > to license it in some way to use it? I realize that it doesn't exist at > this time, but when it does, will it be proprietary? If coding in HL7 > relies CPT codes, does that make part of HL7 (the CPT part) proprietary? John, no, HL7, like any ANSI standard, is not proprietary. That means you can implement and use it without royalties of any kind. Most ANSI and ISO standards require you to purchase expensive documents. While HL7 does sell docus for good money too, most of the HL7 v3 specs are in draft state and are not currently sold but free for anyone to look at and criticise. Besides IETF, HL7 maintains one of the most open policy of passive and active involvment for non-members. You can get involved too. You don't need to have any status like affiliation to a company (as in OMG) or official charge by a country's SDO, as in CEN or ISO. HL7 members are first and foremost humans who contribute their own sense. You mention CPT4 codes. Indeed it is a very itchy issue we all have with vocabulary producers like AMA (CPT4) and CAP (SNOMED). HL7 is very sensitive to that, and as it seems, HL7 would never sell its constituency to any single expensive vocabulary supplier. So, as long as AMA and CAP don't set their code symbols into the public domain, they'll have difficulty getting into the HL7 market. LOINC is the coding system for observation names that has become very common in HL7, but LOINC is an open, free coding system. So, there are really no worries about any kind of proprietary-ness or royalty traps with HL7. regards -Gunther -- Gunther_Schadow-------------------------------http://aurora.rg.iupui.edu Regenstrief Institute for Health Care 1050 Wishard Blvd., Indianapolis IN 46202, Phone: (317) 630 7960 [EMAIL PROTECTED]#include <usual/disclaimer>
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