On behalf of the interim Board of the openEHR Foundation we are very pleased to invite each of you to become an Individual Member of the Foundation.

You can join the openEHR Foundation here: http://members.openehr.org/join-us

The engagement of Individual Members is key to the Foundation moving to an operational mode and establishing the election of members to the new Management Board, which will be responsible for the operation of the Foundation. Until this point the openEHR Foundation has been governed by an interim Board while being supported cooperatively by Ocean Informatics and University College London (UCL) who jointly established the Foundation in 2002. Ocean has now withdrawn its Member and formal guarantee status in the Foundation to ensure a level playing field for all Industry Partners and greater cooperation amongst companies implementing the openEHR specifications.

Individual Members can now nominate to represent either the Individual Membership or Industry Partners on the Management Board.

You can nominate to be on the Management Board here: http://members.openehr.org/event-1790725

Nominations for these position close on the 28th December 2014. Two of these will be elected by Individual Members and two by the Industry Partners – one vote per company. The two nominees with the greatest number of votes in each election will come onto the Management Board. The Management Board will also consist of two members of the Board of Governors, a small body of legal directors of the Foundation whose role will be to ensure the Foundation meets all requirements under British Law. The Management Board will be encouraged to co-opt further expert members to undertake its role.

We believe this will result in a vibrant group to oversee the development of the Foundation and cooperative activities to support the use of openEHR assets.  A new constitution will be developed by the Management Board and approved by the Board of Governors before being lodged at Company House.

The actual process agreed at a recent teleconference with Industry representation is:

1. Call for nominations to the Management Board of the Foundation (as expressed in this email)
1. Two from Individual Members
2. Two from Industry Partners
2. Elections by subscribed Individual Members and Industry Partners if there are more nominations than positions available to each group
3. The Interim Board will shrink to 4 members based on an agreed skills matrix and become the Board of Governors.
4. Two of the Board of Governors will attend the Management Board meetings
5. Call a face-to-face meeting of the Management Board and Board of Governors in Feb/Mar 2015 where:
1. A new constitution is agreed
2. The openEHR work programs and leaders are formally agreed
3. The critical decision making processes within the specification and clinical programs are agreed.
6. The meeting program of the Management Board is agreed

Finally, the Industry Partner and Individual Member contributions will enable the Foundation to maintain the core functions of the organisation:

• To be the custodian of the openEHR Foundation assets comprising the openEHR Specifications, the Clinical Archetypes and templates in the Clinical Knowledge Manager and other educational material

• To host the openEHR, Membership and Clinical Knowledge Manager web sites

• To maintain the membership lists, mailing lists and voting procedures required to constitute the Management Board of the Foundation

• To provide fiduciary, legal and constitutional support to the Management Board to ensure compliance with United Kingdom requirements through Companies House.

• To provide directors insurance for the Foundation Board of Governors and other officers of the Foundation

• To provide business and accounting support through UCLB – the business development organisation of University College London.

At this stage it is envisaged that the Board of Governors will take legal responsibility for the Foundation, approve the objects and constitution of the openEHR Foundation and delegations policy in consultation with the Management Board. UCL will formally agree the new members of the Board of Governors at a virtual AGM every year and will take an advocacy role to ensure this group has the skills to oversee the development of the Foundation. Further International Organisations may be approached in future to broaden the ‘ownership’ of the Foundation.

This is the first international cooperative effort to achieve a health record for the world; one that is not tied to any specific technology and one that will empower citizens around the world to use their health information for their own and society’s benefit.

We look forward to you joining the Foundation and supporting its work.

Yours sincerely, Sam Heard

Chairman, Interim Board.