It is one of several SDO’s accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Most SDOs produce standards or protocols for a particular healthcare domain such as pharmacy, medical devices, imaging or insurance (claims processing) transactions.

Health Level Seven’s domain is clinical and administrative data and their mission is to:
"To provide standards for the exchange, management and integration of data that support clinical patient care and the management, delivery and evaluation of healthcare services. Specifically, to create flexible, cost effective approaches, standards, guidelines, methodologies, and related services for interoperability between healthcare information systems."

• Definition of the data to be exchanged,
• The timing of the interchange, and
• The communication of certain errors to the application.
   

• Security checks,
• Participant identification,
• Availability checks,
• Exchange mechanism negotiations and, most importantly,
• Data exchange structuring.

HL7 is singular as it focuses on the interface requirements of the entire health care organization, while most other efforts focus on the requirements of a particular department.

Moreover, on an ongoing basis, HL7 develops a set of protocols on the fastest possible track that is both responsive and responsible to its members. The group addresses the unique requirements of already installed hospital and departmental systems, some of which use mature technologies.

While HL7 focuses on addressing immediate needs, the group continues to dedicate its efforts to ensuring concurrence with other United States and International standards development activities.

Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Southern Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Kingdom are part of HL7 initiatives.

Moreover, HL7 is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved Standards Developing Organization (SDO). HL7 strives to identify and support the diverse requirements of each of its membership constituencies: Users, Vendors, and Consultants.

Cognizant of their needs, requirements, priorities and interests, HL7 supports all groups as they make important contributions to the quality of the organization. The committee structure, balanced balloting procedures and open membership policies ensure that all requirements are addressed uniformly and equitably with quality and consistency.