Harmonization task group

Greetings X12N Constituents,

I hope this announcement finds everyone healthy and I look forward to meeting in person later this year as we all begin to resume our normal activities.

I wanted to send the X12N constituents a quick update to share news of some of our subcommittee’s activities. TGB/WG1 continues to make progress on the new version of their implementation guide adopted under HIPAA and TGB/WG15 will soon present their Provider Enrollment for EDI Services implementation guide for approval to move to X12J for technical review. The X12N advisory group that drafted the X12N processes supporting X12’s annual maintenance cycle has reviewed all the comments submitted during the recent review period and revised ASC95 based on those comments. The initial version of ASC95 will be presented for subcommittee ballot very soon. Tara and I appreciate this group’s thoughtful and open-minded work and look forward to rolling out this robust yet concise process. As with all new processes, we expect minor adjustments to the process will produce even more efficiencies as we adjust to and improve the annual cycle process across the X12 organization. As part of X12N’s continued focus on simplifying and streamlining workflow in order to improve the quality of our products and reduce the load on our volunteers, I’m pleased to announce the formation of a new adhoc advisory task group, AH01 Harmonization. This task group consolidates and replaces TGB|WG6 and TGC|WG5, reducing redundancy within our subcommittee and supporting efficiency in our efforts to achieve maximum consistency within and between implementation guides. I’m also pleased to announce that I’ve appointed Pat Wijtyk to be the group’s inaugural chair.

The Harmonization task group (TGAH01) was established as a transitional, proof-of-concept task group that is expected to transition into a standing advisory task group by June 2022. The group’s activities will be overseen by the X12N officers. The group is accountable for consistency within and across the technical reports X12N maintains and responsible for developing introductory and explanatory content for inclusion in the technical reports. The group will also ensure consistent use of segments, elements, code lists, and codes as well as consistent wording in situational rules and notes. The task group chair work with the X12 Governance Panel to ensure X12N-specific terms and definitions are added to the X12 Wordbook and will verify appropriate Wordbook terms are used in the technical reports. As we roll into the new subcommittee process for handling maintenance requests, this task group’s constituents will be assigned to X12N MR Development Groups to ensure proposed MR solutions conform to established harmonization and consistency rules.  

Registration is now open for the Summer 2021 Standing Meeting and I’m looking forward to joining you at many of the X12N sessions as we focus on X12N initiatives and activities during the meeting.

Sincerely,

Laurie Burckhardt
ASC X12N Chair