HL7 and CDISC Renew Associate Charter Agreement

Joint Worldwide Clinical Research Standards Educational Events
Planned for 2008
ANN ARBOR, Mich. & AUSTIN, Texas--(Business Wire)--
Health Level Seven, Inc. (HL7) and The Clinical Data Interchange
Standards Consortium (CDISC) announce the renewal of their associate
charter agreement, which was initiated in 2001. As a new key objective
of the renewed agreement, HL7 and CDISC will develop joint educational
programs in areas around the world.

At present, there are several opportunities scheduled or in the
planning stages that are designed to educate on the collaborative
activities of HL7 and CDISC. A half-day CDISC-HL7 tutorial titled
"Harmonizing Standards Initiatives: An Overview of Collaborative
Standards Initiatives for Clinical Research and Healthcare" will be
offered in Copenhagen, Denmark in April, as well as other regions of
the globe throughout the year. CDISC and HL7 are also exploring
holding a one-day joint event "Improving Patient Safety and Clinical
Research through Standards" in China and India in the fall.

The initial Charter Agreement expanded HL7's focus to include the
domain of clinical research, and an HL7 work group was formed to lead
this initiative. As the relevance of CDISC to the research community
has grown, so has the adoption of CDISC standards to improve clinical
research processes and for clinical research and submission of that
data to the FDA. The harmonization between healthcare and clinical
research standards, which is at the core of the CDISC-HL7
collaboration, will further facilitate the conduct of research by
physicians by integrating research into their patient care workflow.

"Recognizing that interoperability of patient care and research
data is critical, HL7 and CDISC began a joint effort in 2004 to map
the research domain into the HL7 Reference Information Model (RIM),"
said Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD, and CEO of HL7. "The National Cancer
Institute (NCI) and the FDA have joined this unprecedented
collaborative effort. The BRIDG (Biomedical Research Integrated Domain
Group) model is now paving the way for more effective collaboration
among clinical investigators and is helping to integrate other
knowledge resources into clinical care, including genomic and
proteomic data."

Edward Helton, PhD, Chairman of the CDISC Board of Directors and
Co-Chair of the HL7 RCRIM Work Group stated, "The charter agreement
between CDISC and HL7 continues to support the important efforts to
build the interface between healthcare and research, not only through
education but through the continuation of the very critical work for
both content and transport data standards so badly needed to
accelerate the timely evaluation of patient safety and efficacy".

For those interested in learning more about the joint CDISC and
HL7 educational opportunities, stay tuned to the CDISC eNewsletter,
the HL7 eNewsletter, and the respective websites (www.cdisc.org) and
(www.HL7.org) for updated information.

About CDISC

The Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) is an
open, global, multidisciplinary, non-profit standards development
organization. Through the work of many volunteers and the generous
support of over 200 member organizations from across the globe, CDISC
has established standards to support the acquisition, exchange,
submission and archive of clinical research data and metadata.

As a catalyst for productive collaboration, CDISC brings together
individuals and organizations spanning the wide variety of
stakeholders in the healthcare continuum to develop and support
global, platform-independent data standards that enable information
system interoperability to improve medical research and related areas
of healthcare.

The CDISC standards are vendor-neutral, platform-independent and
freely available via the CDISC website.

About HL7

Founded in 1987, Health Level Seven, Inc. (www.HL7.org) is a
not-for-profit,

ANSI-accredited standards developing organization dedicated to
providing a comprehensive framework and related standards for the
exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health
information that supports clinical practice and the management,
delivery and evaluation of health services. HL7's more than 2,300
members represent approximately 500 corporate members, which includes
more than 90 percent of the information systems vendors serving
healthcare.

HL7's endeavors are sponsored, in part, by the support of its
benefactors: Accenture; Booz Allen Hamilton, Boston Scientific
Corporation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Duke Clinical
Research Institute (DCRI); Eclipsys Corporation; Eli Lilly & Company;
Epic Systems Corporation; the Food and Drug Administration; GE
Healthcare Information Technologies; GlaxoSmithKline; IBM; Intel
Corporation; InterSystems Corporation; Johnson and Johnson; Kaiser
Permanente; McKesson Provider Technologies; Microsoft Corporation;
Misys Healthcare Systems; NHS Connecting for Health; NICTIZ National
Healthcare; Novartis; Oracle Corporation; Partners HealthCare System,
Inc.; Pfizer, Inc.; Philips Medical Systems; Progress Software
Corporation DataDirect Technologies Division; QuadraMed Corporation;
Quest Diagnostics Inc.; Science Applications International
Corporation; Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services; Solucient,
LLC.; St. Jude Medical; the U.S. Department of Defense, Military
Health System; the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; and Wyeth
Pharmaceuticals.

Numerous HL7 Affiliates have been established around the globe
including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China,
Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,
Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands,
New Zealand, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey,
United Kingdom, and Uruguay.

HL7
Andrea Ribick, Director of Communications,
734-677-7777; andrea@HL7.org
or
CDISC
Tanyss Mason, Director of Communications
919-419-7100; tmason@cdisc.org

Copyright Business Wire 2008