Community Roundtable Featuring Clinical Advisory Council Insights on FHIR Adoption on June 25 at 4 pm
openEHR International and HL7 International announced the successful conclusion of a highly productive joint workshop focused on exploring and advancing collaboration between their respective health data standards communities. The event, held in Amsterdam June 2-3, 2025, brought together leaders from both organizations with experts from the wider community in a spirit of shared commitment to improving global health and research through enhanced interoperability.
Both openEHR and HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) are community-driven standards, developed and enabled by dedicated global communities with diverse stakeholders including clinicians, informaticians, developers and vendors. This shared foundation provides a powerful springboard for joint efforts to enable better health care delivery, foster innovation and accelerate vital research and development worldwide.
Discussions were overwhelmingly constructive, and characterized by a mutual curiosity and openness from members of both communities. The workshop culminated in the identification of five key strategic areas for future collaborative work, and underpinning enabling themes where closer strategic alignment between the openEHR and HL7 FHIR ecosystems can yield significant benefits for the wider health care community.
Join the Vulcan Interoperability Bridge Webinar | Thursday, June 12 at 1:00 PM ET
The story of clinical research has always been one of astounding breakthroughs… and barriers. It’s the story of research, regulators and technologists working together, and more recently, the story of equitable access and activated patients empowered to share their experiences. Clinical research is evolving — and it’s happening through the collective efforts of a passionate, deeply engaged community.
On June 12, we invite you to be part of that evolution.
The Vulcan Interoperability Bridge Webinar, hosted by the Vulcan FHIR® Accelerator in collaboration with the FDA, will bring together clinical research sponsors, EHR providers, life science leaders, technology innovators, academic medical centers and more — all working toward a future where HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)-based interoperability enables smarter, faster and more connected clinical research.
Behind this movement is a simple truth: we can’t innovate in isolation. This is precisely where Vulcan makes a difference by breaking down barriers. Every delay in data sharing, every barrier caused by disconnected systems, slows the path from discovery to patient benefit.
Innovators worldwide invited to demonstrate how HL7 standards and
AI can revolutionize healthcare
HL7 is proud to announce the launch HL7 AI Challenge 2025, a global innovation competition designed to spotlight the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) when powered by open health data standards. Selected winners will be recognized on stage during HL7’s 39th Annual Plenary, Working Group Meeting, September 13-19, 2025, in Pittsburgh.
The HL7 AI Challenge is open to any individual, team or organization across academia, industry, and government using HL7 standards to power AI applications that solve real-world clinical, operational or equity-focused problems. HL7 membership is not required, and there is no cost to participate.
The competition builds on HL7’s long-standing commitment to enabling interoperable, standards-based healthcare innovation and reflects growing global interest in aligning AI adoption with ethical, explainable and secure data practices.
“As AI becomes more deeply embedded in healthcare, we must ensure it advances—not undermines—trust, transparency, and patient outcomes,” said Dr. Charles Jaffe, CEO of HL7 International. “The HL7 AI Challenge invites technologists, researchers and clinicians worldwide to showcase how open standards can anchor responsible, scalable AI innovation, bridging the health IT and AI communities for the benefit of all.”
Community Roundtable Featuring Payer Data Exchange Implementation Guide on May 28 at 4 pm
If you're looking for a real-world take on how the healthcare industry is putting the HL7 Da Vinci Project’s Payer Data Exchange (PDex) Implementation Guide into action, you won’t want to miss this event! The 90-minute virtual community roundtable will feature how organizations are using FHIR-based APIs to improve transparency and value-based care.
How Organizations Are Using PDex in Production Today
After a brief update on the PDex Implementation Guide from Da Vinci’s technical director, attendees will hear about implementation considerations and first-hand implementer accounts from those actively applying PDex to solve real-world data exchange challenges:
- Blue Cross Blue Shield Association + InterSystems will discuss the immense potential of payer-to-payer APIs to increase patient transparency and improve value-based care in light of the high levels of churn of the impacted population, resulting in care gaps and a need to provide patients with longitudinal records of care. Presenters will highlight the relevant Implementation Guides and the workflow issues inherent in the process that are being worked on.
- Availity, Healow Insights, and Humana will explore their experience with payer-to-payer data sharing using PDex—including workflow impacts, scaling considerations, and member-centered outcomes. Availity and Humana will share its observations and lessons learned along their payer-to-payer implementation journey through internal development, coordinating with their cohort of payers, and participating in Connectathons. Then Healow will highlight its experiences from two years in PDex production.
New publication outlines opportunities for accelerating and improving the use of AI to support payment integrity and reduce fraud, waste, and abuse
Last week, HL7 International released a new report outlining the actions needed to fully realize the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) in improving payment integrity and reducing fraud, waste, and abuse. Reducing Fraud and Improving Payment Integrity in Healthcare Through the Use of AI brings together insights from payers, providers, and technology experts to define AI opportunities and emerging solutions, current challenges, implementation strategies, and standards needed to increase transparency and trust.
“The U.S. spends more than $900 billion annually on administrative complexity, waste, and improper payments,” said Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD, CEO of HL7 International. “This publication identifies practical and standards-based approaches to harnessing AI for one of healthcare’s most persistent and costly challenges.”
Key recommendations from the report include:
- Developing standards for explainable AI in healthcare with specific transparency requirements and bias mitigation protocols.
- Creating standards and infrastructure for trust and verification of AI-generated results.
- Establishing frameworks for human-in-the-loop validation that balance automation with clinical expertise.
- Implementing pilot programs focused on provider-payer collaboration that create mutually beneficial scenarios for all stakeholders.
How AI for Deterministic Approaches Can Fix PA Denials
A recent survey by the American Medical Association (AMA) revealed a growing concern among physicians: over 60% believe that unregulated AI tools are systematically denying necessary patient care. “Emerging evidence shows that insurers use automated decision-making systems to create systematic batch denials with little or no human review, placing barriers between patients and necessary medical care,” said AMA President Bruce A. Scott, MD, reacting to the survey results.
This alarming trend exacerbates the already burdensome prior authorization (PA) process in the US, delaying essential treatments and placing undue strain on providers, payers and patients alike.
At Smile Digital Health, we believe that AI should support—not override—good medical judgment. That’s why we developed KALM Services (Knowledge Authoring Lifecycle Management), with AI capabilities designed to exponentially accelerate the creation of deterministic computable policies for prior authorization workflows and other use cases like clinical reasoning and quality measure evaluations.
Are you a member of a technical team that’s beginning its journey toward implementing HL7's Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) application program interfaces (APIs)? Then don’t miss an upcoming three-day online educational event offering two technical tracks tailored to your needs.
Two days of interactive content delivery and demonstrations will be followed by a Connectathon that will provide implementers and developers with the opportunity to test FHIR-based solutions and exchange data with other FHIR interfaces.
Organizations that want to fast-track implementing HL7 FHIR APIs to automate workflow, maximize efficiency and meet federal requirements of the CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule (CMS-0057-F) should encourage their technical teams attend this online event.
“We designed two tracks for technical team members at provider and payer organizations, as well as technology vendors, who are looking for a crash course on making the most of FHIR,” says Viet Nguyen, M.D., Technical Director of the HL7 Da Vinci Project. (Da Vinci has developed implementation guides for putting FHIR to use in supporting value-based medicine.)
The HL7 FHIR at Scale Taskforce (FAST) is going international! As part of our mission to accelerate FHIR adoption and interoperability around the globe, FAST is taking its work beyond the U.S. to engage with the international health IT community.
For the first time ever, FAST will be hosting a dedicated track at the HL7 FHIR Connectathon in Madrid, featuring two of our most critical and widely applicable Implementation Guides (IGs):
🔐 FAST Security - https://build.fhir.org/ig/HL7/fhir-udap-security-ig/branches/main/
🆔 FAST Identity - https://build.fhir.org/ig/HL7/fhir-identity-matching-ig/
While these IGs were originally developed under the U.S. ONC's efforts to advance FHIR adoption, their guidance is intentionally broad and applicable globally. In fact, we're in the process of transitioning them to universal realm status, and your international input is vital.
Why Participate?
🌍 Help shape these key IGs to meet global needs
🧪 Test and validate implementation with FAST experts
📚 Attend deep-dive breakout sessions focused on Security and Identity
🚀 Prepare for the future – FAST Security is a required standard for TEFCA FHIR exchange starting January 1, 2026 in the U.S.