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January FHIR Connectathon Touted a Success: Register Now for May

Written by Diana Manos | Apr 12, 2022 8:51:57 PM

Da Vinci is creating the foundation to solve large scale industry problems.

The HL7 January FHIR Connectathon  was a success, with all examples from the implementation guides (IGs) tested, including over 20 test cases.

The HL7 Da Vinci Project, through its efforts that include Connectathons, “continues to focus on solving real-world data exchange challenges between payers and providers,” said Vanessa Candelora, Da Vinci’s project manager and senior consultant with Point-of-Care Partners, at the Jan. 26 Da Vinci Community Roundtable. “Da Vinci is creating the foundation to solve large scale industry problems, including, risk and quality data sharing and workflow; unlocking data or freeing data needed for patient costs; and reducing provider burden.”

Candelora called HL7 Connectathons, “a fundamentally human-powered endeavor,” praising Da Vinci as “a really great community,” with a multi-stakeholder membership that includes providers, payers, vendors, industry partners and EHRs. “We continue to grow and learn from each other in this party of the willing.”

Candelora added that founders of Da Vinci are pleased with the amount of work the group has accomplished in such a short time. “They really couldn't have envisioned the impact and the progress that this project has made,” she said.

This Connectathon “felt much more like an in-person Connectathon than any previous [virtual] ones have,” Candelora said, with testing on:

  • Payer data exchange (PDex), with STU2 focus and solutions proposed
  • Payer-to-payer (P2P) business-to-business flow and demonstration
  • PDex prior authorization information, with an explanation of benefits (EOB) resource challenge
  • Patient cost transparency (PCT)
  • Successful end-to-end, with transform to payer back-end (X12 mapping), thanks to Edifecs
  • Burden reduction
  • Coverage requirements discovery (CRD) with leading the leading electronic health record (EHR), thanks to Epic
  • PDex formulary and plan net/directory
  • Payer directory production server, thanks to Aetna
  • Risk adjustment

The Connectathon also held a breakout session on the Success of Clincia Data Exchange, and the Member Attribution List, a foundational IG.

Viet Nguyen, MD, Da Vinci Project technical director and HL7 chief standards implementation officer, expressed satisfaction over the PCT test, in particular. “The key to the PCT test was the use of a vendor FHIR endpoint and internal processes, resulting in a FHIR response and output,” he said. “And they did this without pre-coordination with the use case team! Just the IG.”

Da Vinci has been focusing on testing, iterating and updating its IGs and reference implementations, particularly to test interconnectivity with the community, resulting in some successful testing at the Connectathon, according to Candelora. “On the patient cost transparency track, we had our first, successful end-to-end test, that went all the way from the request of a good faith estimate for patient cost transparency, through to the provider’s back-end system, with an X-12 mapping and out to an advanced explanation of benefits to the patient. So, it was pretty exciting to see that first end-to-end test,” she said.

Register Today for HL7's May 2022 FHIR Connectathon

Learn more and register for HL7’s May FHIR Connectathon, a virtual event scheduled May 2-4, at https://www.hl7.org/events/fhir/connectathon/2022/05/.

Join the Da Vinci Community

To learn more and join the community, visit hl7.me/davincinews.

Join the FHIR Community

To learn more and join the community, visit http://community.fhir.org/.