16 May 2025 – Ocean Health Systems today announced that three senior team members – Dr Chunlan Ma, Dr Sebastian Garde, and Dr Seref Arikan – have been appointed as openEHR Senior Fellows to support the newly launched openEHR Fellowship Program in 2025.
The openEHR Fellowship Program is an exciting new initiative designed for professionals looking to deepen their expertise in openEHR through a year-long structured program of mentorship, collaboration, and project-based learning. As part of the program’s support structure, the openEHR organisation has appointed a small group of experienced professionals as Senior Fellows to provide guidance, mentorship, and thought leadership.
“openEHR are delighted to announce their Fellowship to grow capacity and capability in the openEHR community. We are grateful to those contributing including our extremely experienced leaders at Ocean Health Systems who will be supporting the programme,” said Rachel Dunscombe, CEO at openEHR International.
“We are delighted to see Chunlan, Sebastian, and Seref acknowledged for their deep expertise and long-standing contributions to the openEHR community,” said Lukas Eksteen, CEO at Ocean Health Systems. “Seref, Chunlan and Sebastian bring extensive experience to the table, having dedicated many years to this industry. Their collective knowledge makes this a significant and proud moment for the Ocean team, and we look forward to seeing their Fellowship projects further enhance the way health information is structured, shared, and used across the globe.”
Dr Chunlan Ma, a renowned leader in knowledge engineering, will focus her Fellowship on advancing semantic modeling for clinical decision support.
For Chunlan, the Fellowship is an honor, following nearly 20 years of work with openEHR specifications and implementations. “I am proud to be one of the co-authors of the Archetype Query Language (AQL). This fellowship represents a meaningful recognition from the openEHR community, and I deeply appreciate the acknowledgment of my contributions,” said Chunlan.
“For Ocean Health Systems, this recognition reflects our long-standing commitment to the development and advancement of openEHR specifications. Over the past two decades, we have played a pioneering role — from implementing the first openEHR EHR Reference Model in C#, to developing tools such as CKM, the openEHR Archetype Editor, and Template Designer. This fellowship not only highlights our individual efforts but also reinforces our company’s leadership in shaping the future of open digital health platforms.”
Dr Sebastian Garde, an expert in clinical informatics, brings his deep understanding of openEHR architecture and practical implementation to the program.
Sebastian noted that, since 2005, he has been convinced that openEHR is an essential ingredient of a sustainable health system, and has dedicated time, research and energy into helping get openEHR into hospitals and national digital health programs. “From workshops, tutorials, presentations and talks, lectures, and consultancies around the world, it has been wonderful to share the benefits and necessity of openEHR. Throughout this time, I was supported and mentored by Sam Heard and Thomas Beale, the main contributors to openEHR at the time, as well as by Evelyn Hovenga, my professor in Australia. This work also led to the creation of Clinical Knowledge Manager, also known as CKM, a governance tool for clinical content models and a tool to educate people about what openEHR is all about. So, for me, this Senior Fellowship is about giving back to a great community that has helped and supported me over the years.”
“openEHR has come a long way over the last 20 years or so – from research to large-scale implementations around the world nowadays – but I am convinced the best is yet to come,” said Sebastian.
Dr Seref Arikan, with decades of experience in digital health system architecture, will contribute to foundational specifications and innovative tooling.
“This nomination is humbling and a generous act of recognition from openEHR. I’m grateful for the opportunity to help the community in an officially recognised role, following in the footsteps of giants such as Professor David Ingram and Dr Sam Heard, during what is an exciting growth phase for openEHR.
I see this as an opportunity to engage with stakeholders who can not only benefit from our experience as a community and standards organisation, but who can also help us better understand how they see the new challenges and opportunities, such as AI. I think openEHR’s impact on healthcare will be determined by its ability to reach out to as many stakeholders as possible, and I see this role as an opportunity to contribute to that ability.” said Seref.
This recognition highlights Ocean’s continued leadership in openEHR and our commitment to creating smarter, more connected healthcare systems. Congratulations to Chunlan, Sebastian, and Seref – we’re excited to see the impact of your work.
Learn more about the openEHR Fellowship and why it matters here. https://openehr.org/meet-our-senior-fellows/
Ocean Health Systems is a global leader in openEHR and digital health innovation. With over 25 years in health informatics, Ocean continues to drive the development of sustainable, patient-centered technology that works seamlessly across systems.
