This is a proposal for the governance and operational procedures for the Foundation going forward:

The Foundation

The Foundation is changing its governance and operational procedures. An interim Board of Directors has been appointed to oversee the transition to the new arrangements. In future there will be a Board nominated and voted for by Associates and supported by a group of experts in an Advisory Group. The Foundations work will be carried out within four program areas; Specifications, Software, Clinical Models and Localisation. These four programs will be managed by a Program Group consisting of Qualified Members.

Board of Directors

Interim Board to move to new arrangements:

Sam Heard (Chair), Dipak Kalra, David Ingram, Jussara Rotzsch, Bill Aylward, Ian McNicoll.

 [Add brief biographies]

Up to 9 Board positions are available. The Board will aim to be skills based and balanced. The Board positions are for two years when the Board member will need to be re-nominated and stand for election. Minutes of Board meetings and all non-confidential correspondence will be circulated to Associates and members of the Advisory Group.

Eight board positions will be nominated and voted by Associates. One Board position will be nominated and voted by Qualified Members.

Advisory Group

Key experts will be appointed by the Board to join the Advisory Group and advise the Board. Nominations for the advisory group can be made by Members or Associates. Program leads will be invited to attend the Advisory Group meetings. The group will elect a chair person and deputy (who will not be a Program Lead). The Advisory Group will meet at least twice each year. The elected Chair of the Advisory Group (or deputy if the Chair is not available) will be invited to attend Board meetings.

Program Group

The Program Group will be formed to manage each Program and will consist of at least 5 and not more than 9 Qualified Members from that Program. The Program group is a balanced skills based group which is self-maintaining. The Group will invite input from other Qualified members and Contributors in their Program to their decision making processes. The Program Group will make final decisions on a consensus basis wherever possible but by majority vote if no consensus can be reached. Should a vote be tied, the Program Lead will have a casting vote. Any decisions decided by a vote must have a full description of the reasons for and against the decision recorded and circulated to the Program Qualified members and Contributors to that program and to the Board.

 Add Terms of reference of each Program Group (to be added).

Membership

Membership is free and available to all, just join the mailing list in a Program group or simply the announce list for headline news. Clinicians are encouraged to join. Members can then begin work in one or more of the four Programs. Members can become official Contributors and then Qualified Members within one or more programs. To become a contributor you will need to liaise with a member of the Program Group or a Qualified Member or just begin to respond on the Program list. When you begin to contribute significantly to the Program area, the Program Group will take your details and add you to the list of contributors. Qualified Members are appointed by the Program group, a subgroup of Qualified Members, who manage the assets of that Program. Qualified members contact details are available to Members.

Associates

Organisations are able to join the openEHR Foundation as Associates. The openEHR Associates are self-selected stakeholders or sponsors who choose to support the Foundation financially. The openEHR Associates are able to nominate up to 8 Board Members and have one vote to cast for a single candidate when there are excessive nominations for board membership. The most popular candidate(s) will be given the position. Associates receive non-confidential Board minutes and regular updates on the activities of the Foundation.

Intellectual Property

The Foundation aims to protect and freely distribute intellectual property relating to specifications, clinical models (archetypes and templates) and other supporting materials for the advancement of computing in health care. The Foundation will support approved software distributed under Mozilla Tri-license, Apache 2 or similar unencumbered licensing.

IP Assignments by Ocean and UCL to the Foundation. [Add links]

Licensing

Specification documentation is made available under Foundation copyright, Software under the Mozilla Tri-license but moving to Apache 2, and archetypes and templates under Creative Commons.