In which I steal the Ad-Hoc Harley Award...

Sep 13, 2012

It’s the annual HL7 Plenary workgroup meeting. This means that there’s a few little extra administrative-type events here, and one of those events is the presentation of the “Ed Hammond Volunteer of the year” award. This is a particularly prestigious award, made to only a very few people who have gone beyond the call of duty to push the cause of HL7 - that is, development of healthcare standards and interoperability. The recipient list is a small and select bunch. This year, there were two recipients: Keith Boone, and myself.

I’m very honoured to have received this recognition. Actually, I used to watch the awards, and wonder about how people made that much time to volunteer for the cause… well, now I know… so it’s nice to be recognised. Thank you very much, HL7.

Keith was the other recipient. I was particularly privileged to share the stage with Keith, who has a long record of high quality and high impact contributions to healthcare standards over many years. In recent years, Keith has shown real mastery of social media, and used it very effectively to move the cause along. I started to make a list of the things Keith has contributed to, and it’s pretty impressive - CDA, The CDA Book, templates, HITSP, IHE, Meaningful use, social advocacy… and that’s just a start.

Now Keith has a got a blog, and he has this practice of giving out these Harley awards to people that deserve particular recognition for their contributions to Healthcare. Well, I’m going to steal that idea and award one of my own: This certifies that

Keith Boone of GE Healthcare

Has hereby been recognized for outstanding contributions to the forwarding of Healthcare Standardization.

Keith, Congratulations and thank for all your contributions everywhere.