Terminology Authority

The HL7 Terminology Authority is a subcommittee of the Terminology Services Management Group (TSMG). The HTA is responsible for the creation, implementation, and management of HL7 processes involving external terminology management. These processes shall be influenced by input from the Vocabulary Work Group and existing HL7 terminology practices. The activities of the HTA are intended to complement maintenance of terminology that is used by HL7 Protocol Specifications. HTA, via TSMG, shall work with and report to the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) to implement any processes or policies that impact the Working Group.

Purpose

The HTA, as a subcommittee of TSMG, shall serve as a point of contact for any external terminology with which HL7 has established, or in the future shall establish, formal relationships. Working relationships between the HTA and any external organizations requiring a degree of formality shall be governed by Statements of Understanding (SOU) between HL7 International and such organizations as established by the Executive Committee. The HTA works with both the Vocabulary Work Group, responsible for technical terminology structures in HL7 Protocol Specifications, and the HL7 Unified Terminology Governance (UTG) subcommittee of TSMG, responsible for maintenance of HL7's code and identifier system (and related metadata) repository (terminology.HL7.org (THO)).

Scope

The HTA is exclusively focused on terminology used in HL7 Protocol Specifications that is derived from or associated with external terminology systems. Responsibilities include:

• Develop and maintain quality processes and measures related to HL7 terminology derived from external terminology
• Provide advice, where needed, on the acceptability of external vocabulary proposed for inclusion in HL7 terminology
• Maintain relationships with external terminology authorities to ensure legal use of their products.

Leadership

Sub-committee Chair - Caroline Macumber

Sub-committee Co-Chair - Reuben Daniels 

Members - Roel Barelds , Davera Gabriel , Sylvia Thun

Additional Information:   https://www.hl7.org/special/committees/termauth/index.cfm

Contacting the HTA

To contact the HTA, please use the general and open List Serv: termauth@lists.hl7.org

To contact the HTA chairs: termauth-cc@lists.hl7.org

External Terminology Related Requests:

To review the process for validating and/or requesting an external code system or identifier system IDENTIFIER (e.g., URL for use in FHIR), go here

To review the process for requesting new CONTENT in an external terminology (e.g., new concept in SNOMED), go here

Meetings - Agendas and Minutes

External Terminologies - Information

Policy and Process Documents

Request for content in external terminologies

Terminology Authority documents 

HTA Open Tasks