This space is intended to facilitate discussions around establishing local openEHR organisations worldwide. It is envisaged that this will happen through a new work stream called the Localisation Program.

This is how it is shaping up:

1) Local openEHR activity will happen through Qualified Membership for the Localisation Program where individuals and organisations (?) can join from different countries (may as well be a specific territory, language group etc. depending on what local needs are). Acceptance will be based on relevant experience and skills required for localisation activities.

2) Localisation Program Committee, consisting of up to nine individuals, will decide about who can be qualified members in this arena. Main focus of this Committee is to work with the Community and Board and describe how to establish local presence, what processes are required to getting activity in that country and eventually having an affiliated organisation that takes on local representation. This can be any suitably constituted organisation involved in IT. For example in New Zealand it'll be through HL7 NZ Affiliate.

3) Local openEHR Representative (n.b. one or more?) from particular countries will be designated who will lead group of qualified members and other contributors in that country. The Advisory Group will propose to get permission from the Board to represent a national representative and then a representative organisation. These appointments should be approved by the Board before the person is informed that they are the national representative. The Advisory Group will help get the terms of reference for each group sorted and agreed by the Board.

We (Jussara, Shinji and Koray) did some initial thinking together and have few ideas. Let's put our collective thoughts here and try to progress from here.Good luck!

Some thoughts:
1) What exactly does localisation involve? Practically the aim is to introduce openEHR and engage more people and organisations by providing material (Website, prezos, specs and other documentation) and also Archetypes in native language and with local context.

2) Do we need a 'real' organisation or should we continue to work as loosely coupled individuals? Well this is for discussion but many of us believe establishing or working under a not for profit organisation is essential. This will help 'formal' recognition from government and other national organisations, and more importantly we can participate into grant applications, receive sponsorships etc. which may yield substantial resources.

3) How will local membership work? Essentially local openEHR organisations will be open to all and at no cost. However this will not prevent receiving financial or in-kind support from individuals and organisations in return for services or sponsorship.

4) IP issues? ( of openEHR assets and local assets). This probably is tricky as much as we want it to be. However rule of thumb is that, in the spirit of openEHR, both should be free of any royalty or any license of limiting sort. That said some national bodies, such as government or national standards organisations, may require ownership of some local material developed. How shall we deal with this? Has this been a problem for example in Nehta? others? We need input here.

5) Responsibilities and rights of openEHR and local organisations? we will need some sort of a 'template' which provides some common means and then each local organisation may extend that to form their 'constitution' which might be legally binding.

6) How will local activity work? Each local organisation will have one or more qualified members and a national openEHR representative.It is expected that each project or work stream will at least one qualified member who will lead or provide guidance to other members. This will ensure that it'll get proper 'openEHR' seal.

7) Is each local organisation going to have own CKM? Well we should avoid duplication and degradation of international level coherence. Ideally a single CKM instance capable of providing many different national views would be good. Even better, in the likes of decentralisation, perhaps we can have a distributed architecture where national CKM instances can work in sync with top level international CKM and each other. Or perhaps as a start jurisdictions with commonalities (e.g. language, geography, culture) can share instances (e.g. Spanish speaking communities, Nordic countries, or NZ & Oz together etc.).

Feel free to add to the list or provide feedback. Many thanks...