January 2016 - Apelon

Dan Smith

Director, services

Dan Smith joined the Apelon team in 2011. As a manager of the Project Management Office, Dan is responsible for the initiation, planning, and execution of many of Apelon’s projects. He also provides guidance and oversight for other members of the PMO.

Dan employs his engineering background along with Apelon’s software products to design and deploy efficient, technical solutions to an array of Healthcare IT challenges. For instance, Dan plays an active role in the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s efforts to manage hundreds of quality measurement value sets in Apelon’s Distributed Terminology System (DTS), leveraging DTS’ extensive subsetting capabilities. He has also led the initiative to migrate the National Center for Health Statistics’ maintenance of ICD-10-CM into DTS, taking advantage of critical data validation, change management, and export features, some of which were custom built specifically for NCHS. Dan graduated from Cornell with a degree in Chemical Engineering and is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Applied Health Sciences Informatics at Johns Hopkins University.

Asia eHealth Information Network

The Asia eHealth Information Network provides a forum for its members to share and learn about a wide range of health IT topics. Apelon is excited to see our growing involvement with AeHIN enter its third year in 2016.

The Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN, www.aehin.org) was founded in 2012 with the following Statement of Purpose:

The Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN) promotes better use of information communication technology (ICT) to achieve better health through peer-to-peer assistance and knowledge sharing and learning through a regional approach for greater country-level impacts across South and Southeast Asia.

The group provides a variety of web-based resources, teleconferences, and discussion forums, and meets annually in person. The membership, both in terms of individuals who take advantage of AeHIN resources and countries that send representatives, has been growing steadily. The membership now totals more than 800 people from 45 countries!

We got involved in AeHIN through our ongoing work with the OpenHIE terminology community. We’ve provided training and workshops in the Philippines, where Dr. Alvin Marcelo, AeHIN’s Executive Director, is helping to build a national terminology services capacity. Next stop? We are in discussions to stand up an international drug terminology service for use by the newly formed Community of Interoperability Labs (COIL). That service, based on Apelon DTS and taking advantage of FHIR terminology services, will have its content anchored by the already rigorous Thai Medicines Terminology (TMT).

The countries that participate in AeHIN range from large to small, from well-off to developing. It’s a great resource for people at all stages along the health IT adoption curve. Check it out!