Our current Funding Agreement between the Department of Health and Ageing (DOHA) and Standards Australia (SA) provides funding assistance for an Australian delegation of seven delegates to attend international ISO and HL7 meetings throughout the year.

These meetings are generally timed as follows:

•          January – HL7

•          May – HL7 and ISO

•          Sept/Oct – HL7 and ISO

For each of these five meetings DOHA has now offered funding assistance for an additional position as a ‘mentored position’. This role is available to all active members of the IT-014 community to apply if they have been to two or less international meetings.

Standards Australia and our IT-014 stakeholders are very keen to expand the pool of health informatics experts who are willing to commit the necessary time, knowledge and expertise to the development and maintenance of national and  international standards. Applicants are assessed and selected on the basis of their technical experience, interests and ability to actively participate. The ideal candidate may not have had any international standards development  experience but is willing to become (or is already) an active member of the IT-014 community representing Australia’s interests and reporting back to IT-014 following the meeting.

•          Recipients receiving support benefit from participating in this activity in

            the following areas:

•          Gain first hand understanding and insights into the ISO system / ISO/TC 215

            health informatics and HL7 areas;

•          Interacting with and learning from the world’s leading health informatics

            experts

•          The opportunity to build and develop an international network of contacts in the

            sector; and

•          Gaining experience in negotiating and reaching consensus at the international

            level.

Standards Australia would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to consider applying for the position when the ‘call for nomination emails’ are sent out two months prior to the meetings.

The next call for applications will be in March 2012  for the May HL7 and ISO meetings and any candidates considering this opportunity can contact Standards Australia prior to lodging an expression of interest.

Every year Standards Australia facilitates the work program planning process for the IT-014 community of experts.

This year's planning process will commence in January 2012.  Standards Australia will submit a proposal of work to The Department of Health and Ageing by the end of March 2012.

New work item proposals from the community will be due by Friday 3rd February 2012.