HL7 Personal Health Record System Functional Model, Release 2
2.0.1-ballot - Normative Ballot

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## Background (Informative)

### What is HL7?

Established in 1987, Health Level Seven (HL7) is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited, not-for-profit standards-development organization, whose mission is to provide standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information; support clinical practice; and support the management, delivery and evaluation of health services. ANSI accreditation, coupled with HL7's own procedures, dictates that any standard published by HL7 and submitted to ANSI for approval, be developed and ratified by a process that adheres to ANSI's procedures for open consensus and meets a balance of interest requirement by attaining near equal participation in the voting process by the various constituencies that are materially affected by the standard (e.g., vendors, providers, government agencies, consultants, non-profit organizations). This balance of interest goal ensures that a particular constituency is neither refused participation nor is it allowed to dominate the development and ratification of a proposed standard. More information and background on ANSI is available on their website at: http://www.ANSI.org

### PHR WG Background and Charge

The HL7 PHR WG was established as a subgroup in 2005 by the HL7 EHR WG. The PHR WG consists of a diverse set of stakeholders, including consumer advocates, clinicians, PHR system software suppliers, as well as Information Technology and health information management professionals.

Previously, the EHR WG was focused on establishing the EHR System Functional Model (EHR-S FM) as a fully-accredited ANSI standard. However, the EHR WG anticipated that at some future point, an EHR-S would need to exchange health information with the emerging PHR systems. Thus, the PHR WG was initially charged with developing a functional model that identified the functions within a PHR that would be needed to exchange health information with an EHR-S. To that end, the PHR WG began its work by conducting an environmental scan of PHR requirements against which a system would need to conform, as well as PHR system functions already implemented in existing PHR systems. The PHR WG continues to analyze the functionality of PHR systems developed internationally and to include such perspectives in the PHR-S FM.

The PHR WG reviewed PHR definitions, functional descriptions, and other useful material from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Markle / Connecting for Health Initiative, American Health Information Management Association, the U.S. National Cancer Institute and other sources. It also received a vast amount of information from those volunteers in the WG who had direct marketplace knowledge of PHR system functionality, expertise in protecting the confidentiality of health information and the privacy of the individual, and functionality of EHR systems.