Press Release

UN/CEFACT and OASIS Meeting Showcases ebXML for Healthcare and B2B

BEA Systems, Bind Systems, Bowstreet, bTrade.com, Care Data Systems, Commerce One, Contivo, Covisint, Cyclone Commerce, Data Access, Fujitsu, General Electric, IBM, IONA, Intalio, IPNet, Mega, NTT Comm, NTT Data, Samsung SDS, Schemantix, Seeburger, Sterling Commerce, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Tibco, Viquity, VISA International, webMethods and XML Global Team with Automotive Industry Action Group, Health Level Seven, Open Applications Group, RosettaNet, SWIFT and EDI X12 to Demonstrate Working Models of Open Information Exchange with ebXML

Boston, MA, USA and Geneva, Switzerland; 8 May 2001 — -The final meeting of the 18-month ebXML initiative, sponsored by UN/CEFACT and OASIS, will feature the most extensive ebXML proof-of-concept yet demonstrated and the first to showcase ebXML’s security specification. In Vienna on 9 May 2001, international standards groups, Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), Health Level Seven (HL7), Open Applications Group (OAG), RosettaNet, SWIFT and EDI X12, will team with 30 vendors from around the world to implement the ebXML specifications and demonstrate how ebXML can be used to meet the needs of electronic business today.

The demonstration will be part of a week-long ebXML meeting, during which participants are expected to ratify the ebXML specifications and begin the next phase of continued development, implementation and maintenance. “For more than a year, software providers and industry groups have put ebXML to the test, implementing the specifications as they were being developed,” noted Klaus-Dieter Naujok of IONA, Chair of ebXML and member of the UN/CEFACT Steering Committee. “Because of these efforts, we are able to deliver ebXML specifications with confidence in their stability and with the support of the industry at-large.”

In Vienna, BEA Systems, Bind Systems, Bowstreet, bTrade.com, Care Data Systems, Commerce One, Contivo, Covisint, Cyclone Commerce, Data Access, Fujitsu, General Electric, IBM, IONA, Intalio, IPNet, Mega, NTT Comm, NTT Data, Samsung SDS, Schemantix, Seeburger, Sterling Commerce, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Tibco, Viquity, VISA International, webMethods and XML Global will demonstrate ebXML at work in healthcare and B2B. Two end-to-end tracks will use actual payloads and scenarios from AIAG, HL7, OAG, RosettaNet, SWIFT and X12. ebXML in Healthcare The healthcare track of the POC will use HL7 messages and documents as payloads within ebXML transport and routing envelopes.

The demo scenario will begin with a patient visit to a physician’s office. The office will send a registration message pre-admitting the patient to a hospital for testing. At the hospital, the patient will be examined and lab work will be ordered, the order being transmitted via ebXML to a remote lab. The record of the original patient encounter in the physician’s office, plus the registration message, lab order and lab results will be sent to two clinical information portals where the virtual patient record can be collected and accessed. ebXML in B2B The ebXML POC electronic business track simulates a complete end-to-end B2B transaction, using messages from RosettaNet, OAG, EDI X12, SWIFT and ebXML Core Components. ebXML vendors play the roles of buyer, supplier, registry, marketplace, credit authorization agency and financial institution. The scenario begins with the buyer discovering the seller through the ebXML registry. It then highlights a seller catalogue update through the e-marketplace, followed by the buyer’s purchase order request. A request for credit is sent by the e-marketplace to the authorization agency, which responds with an invoice. Following an advance shipment notification, the credit agency transmits messages to the banks of both the buyer and the seller to reflect the completion of the end-to-end business scenario.

“The ability of these 28 vendors to demonstrate ebXML on this scale is a remarkable achievement,” observed Sid Askary of Intalio, ebXML Proof Of Concept Project Team Leader. “Execution of these complex business and healthcare scenarios and interoperability among so many early adopters is a sign of success for ebXML.”

About ebXML ebXML (www.ebXML.org) is an International Initiative established by UN/CEFACT and OASIS in late 1999 with a mandate to undertake an 18-month program of work to research and identify the technical basis upon which the global implementation of XML (Extensible Markup Language) can be standardized. The goal of ebXML is to facilitate open trade between organizations regardless of size by enabling XML to be used in a consistent manner to exchange electronic business data. About UN/CEFACT UN/CEFACT (www.uncefact.org) is the United Nations body whose mandate covers worldwide policy and technical development in the area of trade facilitation and electronic business. Headquartered in Geneva, it has developed and promoted many tools for the facilitation of global business processes including UN/EDIFACT, the international EDI standard. Its current work programme includes such topics as Simpl-edi and Object Oriented EDI and it strongly supports the development and implementation of open, interoperable global standards and specifications for electronic business.

About OASIS OASIS (http://www.oasis-open.org) is the international, not-for-profit consortium that advances electronic business by promoting open, collaborative development of interoperability specifications. OASIS sponsors include Accenture, Access360, Adobe Systems, and Data Solutions, Arbortext, Auto-trol, Aventail, Baltimore Technologies, B-Bop Associates, BEA Systems, Bentley Systems, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Bowstreet, Business Logic Corporation, Chrystal Software, Cincom Systems, Cohesia, Commerce One, Critical Path, CrossLogix, DataChannel, Dataloom, Deutsche Post AG, Documentum, EADS Airbus, election.com, empolis, Engage, Enigma, Excelergy, eXcelon, Extricity Software, First Call Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Informix, Infoteria, Innodata, Intel, Interwoven, IPNet Solutions, ITEDO Software, Ivis Group, Jamcracker, Logistics Management Institute, Mediaplex, Mercator Software, Microsoft, Netegrity, NetFish Technologies, Netscape/AOL, NextPage, NII Enterprise Promotion Association, Nimble Technology, NIST, Novell, ObjectSpace, Oblix, OpenNetwork Technologies, Pearson Education, Planet 7 Technologies, Popkin Software, Reuters Limited, SAA Consultants, Sabre, SAP, SeeBeyond, Sequoia Software, Silverstream Software, SoftQuad Software, Software AG, Sterling Commerce, StreamServe, Sun Microsystems, Synth-Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, The Tamalpais Group, Thomas Technology Solution, Tibco, US Defense Information Systems Agency, Virtual Access Networks, Visa International, Wavo, webMethods, Whitehill Technologies, Xerox, XML Global, XMLSolutions and Xyvision Enterprise Solutions.

For more information:
Carol Geyer Director of Communications OASIS
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org