Winter 2008 Key Contributors

George Mac Ginnis

NHS Connecting for Health

George achieved outstanding results in getting use cases ready for ballot. He drove the completion of several use cases and did an excellent job of identifying the necessary details required to ensure quality use cases that adequately represented a variety of perspectives. Additionally, he helped build stronger relations with the TWG through participation in the xHR interface group and with the security and privacy group. He made significant contributions to the TWG work. Equally important is his creation of valuable lines of communication between the UCWG and the TWG that will continue to pay dividends.

George leads NHS Connecting for Health's assistive technology programme, which was established in response to growing need to support the development and procurement of telehealth technologies that meet the emerging needs of the National Health Service in England, including integration into the NHS' electronic Care Records Service. As well as working with the Continua Health Alliance developing proposals for future aspects of interoperability, George has been involved with in setting up a national procurement framework for personal health systems and supporting the creation of the large scale "Long Term Condition Whole System Demonstrator" projects in England.

George has a wide range of experience in IT and business change projects. His previous work includes deployment of digital x-ray systems and implementing new emergency service command and control operations. George holds masters degrees in Engineering, International Affairs and Business Administration.

Jeff Egan

Christus Health

Jeff achieved outstanding results in getting use cases ready for ballot. He drove the completion of several use cases and did an excellent job of identifying the necessary details required to ensure quality use cases that adequately represented a variety of perspectives. Additionally, he helped build stronger relations with the TWG through participation in the xHR interface group and with the security and privacy group. He made significant contributions to the TWG work. Equally important is his creation of valuable lines of communication between the UCWG and the TWG that will continue to pay dividends.

Randy Carroll

IBM

Randy Carroll shouldered an incredible amount of work by volunteering to fill a critical path gap and deliver the ISO/IEEE 11073 Aging Independently Hub device specification.
This entailed immersing himself in both the Aging Independently domain and the IEEE 11073 technology. Additionally, he paved the way for all PHD specification compliance sections by authoring the first one. Randy has great intellect and experience which he intentionally applies to issues that are critical to the team's success. He is very results oriented and always respectful and warm to others.

Randy Carroll is a Senior Software Engineer for IBM at their Research Triangle Park facility where he works in a software standards and strategy organization. His current work focuses on the healthcare industry especially personal healthcare and "aging in place." In support of this work, he actively participates in Continua Health Alliance and other standards organizations such as IEEE and HL7, where the base building blocks are being constructed.

Previously, his work included vehicle telematics and RFID based supply chain management. While he has held a variety of management and development positions over the years, his primary interests remain centered around embedded computing and the practical application of technology. He holds a B.S and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Kentucky, as well as an M.B.A. from Wake Forest University.

Lars Schmitt

Philips Research Europe

Lars Schmitt pioneered the ISO/IEEE 11073 device specialization work by delivering the Weight Scale specification and prototype implementation. His work served as a significant catalyst for completion of all other device specializations as they draft heavily from this work. Additionally, he took a leadership position on Interoperability Guidelines Team and coordinated broadly to resolve and document guidelines for the device data framework section. Lars is technically strong and well-organized. His great communication skills enable him to work well with others to drive consensus on key issues.

Lars is a Research Scientist at Philips Research Europe. Since joining Philips in 2006, Lars has been active in the healthcare domain addressing connectivity standards and technology. In this context, he has been actively participating in the Continua Health Alliance and other standardization organizations such as IEEE, Bluetooth, and ZigBee.

Lars received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. Early this year, Lars successfully defended his PhD thesis in Communications Engineering from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany.