I Suspect This Is A Really Big Deal. I Wonder How It Will Work Out?

The following was announced a little while ago: HL7 to offer its interoperability standards for free September 5, 2012 | By Marla Durben Hirsch Standards development icon Health Level Seven International (HL7) has decided to offer its intellectual property, including its standards for interoperability, free of charge via licensing agreements, beginning in 2013. "HL7's vision is to make its collaborative, consensus-driven standards the best and most widely used in healthcare," said CEO Charles Jaffe, M.D., in the announcement. "By eliminating this barrier to implementation, we can come closer to realizing our goal, in which healthcare IT can reduce costs and improve the quality of care." According to HL7's PowerPoint explaining the decision, the organization chose to provide its standards to more effectively advance interoperability, help government agencies, vendors and academia fulfill their goals and be more closely aligned with other standards organizations....

This is the initial part of the post - read more by clicking on the title of the article. David.