The Standard

Much Progress Made on This and Other Da Vinci Project Use Cases During Recent FHIR Connectathon

The HL7 Da Vinci Project’s Gaps in Care use case continues to make rapid progress in developing a Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®)-based solution to help payers, providers and patients improve care quality under value-based care scenarios.

Several issues were addressed during last month’s Virtual FHIR Connectathon, and the hope is that an implementation guide update for the standard will be balloted in September stated Viet Nguyen, MD and Yan Heras, who are leading the work on the use case. The progress and work on the Gaps in Care use case exemplifies work done on several Da Vinci Project use cases during the Connectathon.

Next week, developers working with health data are gathering at the FHIR Dev Days conference, June 15-18, 2020, and Microsoft is pleased to host the “Hack on FHIR.”  Get coding time, explore the FHIR spec, and learn the platforms helping organizations innovate using technology that removes barriers to interoperability.

In the world of technology, new inventions and ideas are introduced daily. It’s become common to brand a new technology platform as one that will “revolutionize” or “transform" the world as we know it.  But in most cases, the true test of new technology is far more than slogans or hype, it’s how that tech stands up in a crisis or an emergency.  

HL7's Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic is helping to reveal new ways to use HL7’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR®) standard to share healthcare information and coordinate services, but systemic shortcomings in existing health information systems are hampering coordination of a national response.

FHIR is being used in some initial efforts to support public health efforts, and it has the potential to rapidly address approaches to gather data and coordinate research across the planet, said Wayne Kubick, chief technology officer for HL7 International.

“The FHIR platform can enable multiple apps to rapidly address urgent new use cases, such as public health,” said Kubick during a webinar on April 30, hosted by HL7 and sponsored by CitiusTech, entitled “Data Sharing in the Spotlight: COVID Gaps, Interop Rules and The Path Forward.”

Because FHIR enables data to be easily accessed by open source apps, it can help in the rapid response needed to the current pandemic, Kubick said. “Increased global adoption can help to get to a common platform of collaboration around the world; a FHIR infrastructure is the first step in a long process – to take advantage of this infrastructure, it will require further innovative, agile methods to build out implementation guides. Standards can’t solve the problem entirely – we need the infrastructure there to support rapid response capabilities.”

Three use cases will be in the spotlight as the HL7 Da Vinci Project hosts its regular monthly community roundtable from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, May 27.

The session will demonstrate how organizations are using the Da Vinci Project implementation guides to streamline the exchange of information between payers and providers.

The event, “Learn How Cambia Health Solutions, HealthSparq and United are Using Da Vinci Specifications to Advance Value-Based Care,” will look at ways that HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) can be used to achieve quality measurement, provider search and lab results integration into EMRs.

Due to COVID-19, most of the in-person conferences have been changed to virtual events. I recently attended my first-ever fully online technology conference, the Virtual HL7 FHIR Connectathon. This article details my experience and recommendations, in general, for all future conferences post-COVID-19.

Introduction

First, let me give my kudos to HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Product Director Grahame Grieve, the planning team, track leads, FHIR community and HL7 for the  excellent execution of  the Virtual FHIR Connectathon. The conference includes healthcare data interoperability topics with different tracks, expertise and both technical non-technical skills.

I have attended many in-person conferences in the past. Over time, I realized people attend conferences for primarily for two reasons:

1. Learning new skills
2. Networking

Let me share my thoughts based on my first Virtual FHIR Connectathon experience.

Recap of the April HL7 Da Vinci Project Community Roundtable

This is a time of great health policy discussion and activity, especially given the challenge of COVID-19 and the finalization of significant federal regulations that will now move into the implementation stage. HL7 and its standards, such as Fast Healthcare Interoperabilty Resources (FHIR^®), are a strong fiber in these developments. Discussed here are key aspects of the final interoperability, patient access and information blocking rules recently released related to implementing provisions in the 21^st Century Cures Act (Public Law 114-155). The intersection of policy, HL7 standards and COVID-19 will be highlighted in this space soon. Stay tuned!

HL7 collaborates with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), and the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) to support eCR Now through the use of HL7 FHIR in the nationwide initiative formulated for the rapid roll-out of automated electronic case reporting (eCR) from EHRs to state and local public health agencies.

HL7 is developing the SANER HL7® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) Implementation Guide (IG) to support standards-based communication to emergency response authorities regarding critical COVID-19 resources such as ICU beds, ventilators and other essential equipment and treatment supplies. Audacious Inquiry is leading the development of open source solutions that will follow the SANER HL7® FHIR® IG.