The latest FAST Focus webinar provided a comprehensive update on the progress and scope of the FAST Consent project, an initiative pivotal to streamlining data exchange in health IT. This quarterly series aims to engage the community, share updates, and encourage participation in ongoing FAST projects. Below, we delve into the key takeaways from the session, with a spotlight on the objectives and contributions
The FAST Consent Project: An Overview
Consent management in healthcare is a complex issue that requires innovative solutions to manage and transmit consent records at scale. The FAST Consent project emerged in response to these challenges, focusing on how to make consent management effective across a diverse and multi-faceted ecosystem. Project leads—including Durwin Day, Mohammad Jafari, Kevin Day, Maidul Islam, Sam Schifman, and Jean Duteau—are spearheading efforts to define scalable consent handling strategies that align with both technical and legal requirements.
Unpacking Consent Management Use Cases
One of the highlights of the webinar was the exploration of various consent management use cases. These included scenarios for requesting, capturing, and managing consent records, with an emphasis on pre-populating forms and ensuring consistent identity management. The ability to enact and revoke consent was also detailed, underscoring the use of HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) resources like Questionnaire, Task, and Provenance to capture and track the lifecycle of consent records, ensuring transparency and legal compliance.
Delegation, Disclosure Audits, and Lifecycle Tracking
Additional use cases focused on delegation and disclosure audits, key for capturing policy fragments and tracking the lifecycle of consent agreements. Although disclosure audits can be technically complex, their importance in maintaining transparency was acknowledged. Kevin Day also discussed scenarios for sharing consent between systems—ranging from no sharing to consent caching and subscription-based sharing—each requiring consistent application to meet regulatory standards.
The Road Ahead for FAST Consent Solutions
The FAST Consent project addresses a critical need in the health IT landscape. By tackling challenges related to consent capture, management, and sharing, the project aims to pave the way for a more interoperable, efficient, and compliant system. The ongoing work reflects FAST's commitment to creating infrastructure components that meet today's needs and anticipate future requirements in data exchange.
Follow the FAST Community
For those looking to stay informed or contribute, the FAST team welcomes you to join our listserv, engage through public calls, participate in testing at Connectathons or join FAST as a member to help shape our work. These collaborative efforts are key to building solutions that benefit the entire health IT ecosystem, ensuring that consent management is not only feasible but scalable across varied healthcare settings.
Be sure to follow the FAST LinkedIn page to stay up- to-date on where FAST is presenting and other timely news.
