Trainer

RIK SMITHIES

  • MSc (Software Engineering), University of Birmingham
  • HL7, FHIR and Health Architectures Consultant, Trainer
  • FHIR Certified Implementer, committer and official HL7 International tutor 15 years experience HL7 - V2, V3, CDA and FHIR
  • SNOMED CT. Technical lead for ISO IDMP.C#, .NET, UML, XML/JSON, XSLT 15 years., HTML/CSS/JavaScript.
  • C#, .NET, UML, XML/JSON, XSLT 15 years., HTML/CSS/JavaScript
  • Created the first FHIR server and client in the UK
  • Technical Chair of HL7 UK, June 2013-present
  • Fellow of HL7 International (elected 2021)
  • Host and developer of international FHIR training courses, US, Europe and Middle East

Independent integration and data architect, FHIR consultant and trainer (9 years). Having 25 years of experience with system integration, clinical terminology, business analysis, design and development in the UK NHS and health and pharmaceutical industry worldwide. One of the world’s most experienced FHIR trainers, since 2014, and have had held in-person courses in 12 countries, including much of Europe, UAE, Canada, and regularly in the US (invited to train Microsoft in New York). Regular official tutor at HL7 International next meetings. Online tutor for all HL7 International FHIR courses (FHIR Fundamentals, FHIR Intermediate). 15 years’ experience in HL7 - V2, V3, CDA and FHIR. Involved with FHIR since the beginning.

KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  • FHIR Certified Implementer, committer and official HL7 International tutor.
  • Created the first FHIR server in the UK.
  • Host and developer of international FHIR training courses, US, Europe and Middle East.
  • Second most active committer to the GitHub project which publishes FHIR (only behind Grahame Grieve, the inventor and product owner of FHIR).
  • Volunteer board member (Technical Lead and former Chair) of HL7 UK for 15 years - a not for profit organization that promotes the use of international healthcare interoperability standards.
  • Elected as a Fellow of HL7 International in 2021.
  • Clinical terminology and SNOMED CT. Technical lead for ISO IDMP.
  • Expertise with EHR, pharmacy, pharmacovigilance, laboratory, general practice, clinical trials, genomics and other health and life sciences domains.

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE

  • Clinical model design and implementation.
  • Semantic interoperability, terminology, ontologies.
  • Analysis and use cases, agile methodologies.
  • C#, .NET, UML, XML/JSON, XSLT 15 years.
  • HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

PROJECTS

  • 2014 – 2022, IDMP and FHIR Consultant, EMA - European Medicines Agency (Netherlands)
    Production of FHIR based REST APIs for European-wide submission of medicinal products and substances to EMA regulators (SPOR, UPD, DADI, ePI). Work with core international FHIR team to create specialised resources for pharma industry. Lead modeller for IDMP (Identification of Medicinal Products), co-authoring the standards for ISO 11615 and 11238 with EMA and FDA colleagues. Created modelling and transformation framework for processing IDMP, FHIR, SPL/CPM, UML models and XEVPRM.
  • April 2022 - Present, FHIR Consultant, Accumulus Synergy (US)
    Technical consultancy for this industry led non-profit organization that seems to align pharmaceutical and regulatory data FHIR submissions. Sub-contractor for Lantana Inc.
  • July 2020 - Present, FHIR Consultant, PQ/CMC Project, FDA (US)
    FHIR consultancy for the US Food and Drug Administration’s PQ/CMC project, which aims to standardise the submission of drug product manufacturing quality information. Sub-contractor for IBM.
  • March - November 2019, Data Architect, Eastern AHSN / Cambridge University Health Partners
    Leading the technical aspects of an innovative research project combining multiple SNOMED CT data sources, phenotypic and genomic, for insights into Rare Diseases. Creation of a unique FHIR data hub combined with sequence data in OpenCGA. Partnership with Microsoft Research (UK). Successful pilot up to September 2019, has led to further £5m award from HDR UK. This project was awarded HDR UK project of the year for 2019.
  • 2013 - 2014, Integration Architect, Viapath / Guys and St Thomas (UK)
    Lead architect for an enterprise integration layer to support a new Laboratory Information System deployed across both sites. The implementation redeveloped more than 50 HL7 interfaces using a BizTalk server and a canonical data model, supporting 3 different LIMS. Capability developed to allow consolidation of lab services across multiple laboratories, to streamline operations and achieve cost savings.
  • 2011 - 2013, Integration Consultant, Parexel/Perceptive Informatics (UK, US)
    UML modelling with Sparx Enterprise Architect to produce a messaging platform for a large integration project, to link the company’s drug trial systems. Design of data models based on international standards, with database generation and XML schema for message definitions, using XSLT and .NET. Mapping and transformation of existing system data to canonical form.
  • 2011 - 2012, HL7 Consultant, NATO (Netherlands)
    Consultant on HL7 and related standards for the NATO MEDICS project, a health messaging infrastructure for troop evacuation and tracking. Supporting the NC3A Command and Control agency in applying international standards for health messaging architectures.
  • 2009 - 2011, Consultant Systems Analyst, II4SM (Switzerland)
    Production of a semantic technology platform for pharmacovigilance and clinical trials in the pharmaceutical industry. Data mining for patient recruitment using ontologies and terminology mapping, cross referencing multiple data sources and terminologies in different formats (SNOMED CT, ICD10, RxNorm etc.).
  • 2004 - 2009, HL7 and ePrescribing Consultant, NHS Connecting For Health (UK)
    Project: NHS Dictionary of Medicines and Devices (dm+d), 2007-2009
    Consultant to the NHS Pharmacy team to produce the dm+d drug terminology. This is a SNOMED CT data set covering all UK licensed medicines. Work included analysis for an electronic prescribing framework to allow dm+d to be used safely in secondary care. Production of simple ontologies to describe drug and device characteristics (OWL/RDF).
    Project: HL7 Specifications and Clinical Data Modelling, 2004-2009
    Production of HL7 specifications for various clinical domains, as part of the UK national programme. Creation of several CFH MIM releases for lab messaging, electronic prescribing, radiology, and GP2GP. Liaison with international standards bodies to develop compatible standards.
  • 1994 - 2004, Technical Architect, iSOFT/Torex Health (UK)
    Architect and designer of iSOFT Synergy, a General Practice system with installed user base of several thousand GPs. Responsibilities covered the full product development life cycle: requirements, analysis, architecture, and clinical data modelling and coding using C++, C #and SQL (MS SQL Server). System included a full ePrescribing interface with dispensing, interactions checking, formularies, stock control and generic swap. Created user friendly English-like query language for reporting. Designed and coded HL7 message handling interfaces and exports to research data feeds.
  • Various Clients, 1984 to 1994
    Worked on a contract developer basis for various companies (including British Telecom, Amersham International), mostly in the field of telecommunications and life sciences. Designed software for a large accountancy firm whilst studying for first degree.


CLIENTELE

  • National Health Service (NHS) - UK
  • European Medicines Agency (EU)
  • FDA (US)
  • IBM (US)
  • Cambridge University (UK)
  • Microsoft (US)
  • Accumulus Synergy (US)
  • HL7 International (US)
  • Fire.ly (Netherlands)
  • Datapharm (UK)
  • Ignite (UK)
  • Aire Logic (UK)
  • Nautilus (UK)
  • Maldaba (UK)
  • HCI Solutions (AT)


SPEAKING EVENTS

  • HL7 International – Introduction to FHIR, January 2023, Las Vegas, US
  • HL7 UK – FHIR Overview, February 2023 (online, UK)