An HL7 Europe webinar on Monday, 16 March 2026. Scroll down for the links to the slides and the recording.

Before there was the EHDS, there was health telematics, health IT, telemedicine, eHealth… and there was Bert Kabbes, a Dutch healthcare integration specialist who discovered Health Level Seven (then just a few years old), saw its potential, and set upon bringing global standards and interoperability to the Netherlands. That was in the early 1990s.

Last December, Bert Kabbes passed, and the HL7 Netherlands community came together to celebrate his life. In a moving tribute to their founder, driving force, and inspiration, his friends and colleagues praised his efforts to convene and drive the Dutch HL7 affiliate (almost the first in the world), to advance global standards adoption in the Netherlands, and to drive connectivity and exchange of information in Dutch healthcare.

In this webinar, HL7 Europe brought the European HL7 community together, newcomers as well as seasoned experts, to reflect on the wider implications and learnings from Bert’s journey, touching on themes of:

• The interplay of global standards and local implementation
• The work on maturing national affiliates and
• Paths towards building the HL7 community.

The agenda:

• Welcome
• Bert Kabbes’ journey
  • Bert and HL7 over the years
    Rene Spronk, Ringholm
  • Local implementation of global standards
    Robert Stegwee, CEN/TC251
  • Bringing in the policymakers
    Jan-Eric Slot, HL7 Netherlands
• … and what he can teach us (panel)
  • Alexander Henket, Nictiz
  • Catherine Chronaki, HL7 Europe
  • Kai Heitmann, HL7 Germany
• Observations / reflections / questions from the audience
• Closing and next steps

The webinar was facilitated by Michael Strübin from HL7 Europe.

Click here for the session slides.