Join two live webinars featuring the 2026 HL7 AI Challenge winners and see how
AI and HL7 standards are being applied to real-world healthcare challenges. 

What does healthcare AI look like when it moves beyond experimentation and into practical, real-world applications?

The winners of the second annual HL7 AI Challengeoffer a glimpse into that future, demonstrating how artificial intelligence and HL7® standards can work together to improve data quality, strengthen clinical intelligence, support better workflows, and make health information more accessible and actionable.

Now, the HL7 community has an opportunity to see these solutions in action.

HL7 International will host two free AI Challenge Winners Showcase webinars on October 14 and October 28, featuring live demonstrations and presentations from the award-winning teams. Moderated by Daniel Vreeman, DPT, HL7 Chief Standards Development Officer and Chief AI Officer, the sessions will take participants behind the solutions and explore how teams are applying AI and interoperability standards to real healthcare challenges.

A Global Look at AI and Interoperability

The 2026 HL7 AI Challenge attracted 73 submissions from 25 countries, more than double the number of entries received during the inaugural Challenge in 2025.

Individuals, companies, academic and research institutions, government organizations, nonprofits, and teams worldwide were invited to demonstrate AI solutions that leverage HL7 standards to improve health, healthcare, and public health.

This year’s awardees tackled a wide range of challenges, including fragmented patient information, clinical decision support, data quality, chronic disease management, AI transparency, and the development of new FHIR®-enabled applications.

“AI innovation in healthcare cannot happen in isolation from the data and infrastructure that support it,” said Daniel Vreeman, DPT, Chief Standards Development Officer and Chief AI Officer of HL7 International. “The solutions recognized through this year’s Challenge demonstrate the many ways innovators are putting HL7 standards to work alongside AI, from improving data quality and clinical intelligence to enabling new applications and workflows.”

The two showcase webinars provide an opportunity to go beyond the award announcements and hear directly from the people who built these solutions.

Reflections from the ADAPT Chief AI Officers on Innovation Panel Discussion, November 2025

After decades of working toward seamless health data interoperability, we find ourselves at another pivotal moment. The rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare presents us with a familiar challenge wearing a new face: how do we ensure these powerful new tools work together transparently, accountably, and in the service of better health for people everywhere?

At a recent ADAPT conference panel, I had the opportunity to reflect on what our interoperability journey can teach us as we venture into standardizing intelligence, not just data. Here are some key insights from that conversation.

The Journey Continues

First, a grounding perspective: this is a journey, not a destination. Despite all the progress we've made in healthcare interoperability, too often, people still move faster and further than their health information. The ability for any digital tool—including AI—to help people make better health decisions is always limited by the scope of data in its purview and its capability to make sense of it.

Even the most powerful AI we can imagine must overcome the same boundaries we've always faced: technical, organizational, business, and jurisdictional barriers that prevent us from seeing the complete picture of health information relevant for individuals or populations.

However, HL7's decade-plus journey with Fast Health Interoperability Resources (FHIR® ) has taught us something crucial: open standards are a potent fuel for innovation. The vibrant, open, collaborative community around FHIR wasn't just a nice byproduct—it was the key force that created a well-tuned specification and enabled it to flourish in the marketplace.

Open standards level the playing field, reduce barriers to participation, and free organizations from proprietary formats. They unlock new connectivity, preserve data sovereignty, and most fundamentally, enable new digital freedoms. As we approach AI standardization, maintaining this commitment to openness isn't guaranteed, but it's the future we're fighting for.

Winners Recognized for Standards-Based AI Innovation, Collaboration and Real-World Impact

 Today, HL7 announced the winners of its first-annual HL7 AI Challenge, spotlighting innovators developing AI applications powered by open, standards-based frameworks in healthcare. The announcement was made during the morning session of HL7’s 39th Annual Plenary and Working Group Meeting (WGM) in Pittsburgh.

 Judges selected nine honorees from across multiple categories, recognizing innovation, collaboration and real-world impact.

 AI Challenge Overall Awardee Winners

• Robert Lario, PhD (Xzyos.ai) and Kevin Baskin, MD (Vanguard): AI-Conformable Venous Atlas: A Novel Solution for Clinical-Structural Correlation and Medical Device Surveillance
• Verto Health: VERTO Connect: A Solution to Healthcare's Unstructured Data Problem
• Quantek Systems, Inc: DynaMap AI – Active Inference-driven Clinical Workflow Engine

And six honorees were recognized for their contributions in the following specialized categories.

AI Challenge Category Winners

• Pioneer in Healthcare Innovation: (Ignyte Group and Appian) – Bring AI to Work(flow) – Provides robust process improvement throughout the patient lifecycle via AI agentic assistance
• Excellence in AI Transparency & Trust: (Trisotech) – Standardizing Clinical Autonomy: BPM+ Determinism and HL7 Integration for AI Agents
• Interoperability Leadership Award: (Whitefox Cloud Consulting) – Whitefox FHIR Converter
• Open Solution Award: (Omni Health Nexus) – The Intelligent Medical Assistant – Revolutionizing Information Management for Better Care
• Clinical Data Quality & Outcomes Award: (Aidbox Forms from Health Samurai)– AI Assistant for FHIR SDC and Analytics
• Transformative Impact in Healthcare Award: (Let’s Talk Doc) – AI Avatar Patient Communication Platform

Dr. Daniel Vreeman Named Chief AI Officer to Drive Organization's Strategic AI Agenda

HL7 has launched an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Office to establish foundational standards for safe, trustworthy AI in healthcare and convene the global community driving this transformation.

The new office positions HL7 at the forefront of healthcare's AI revolution, creating frameworks that ensure emerging technologies are trusted, explainable, interoperable, and scalable across clinical, operational, and research settings worldwide.

"Artificial intelligence will fundamentally reshape healthcare delivery, evaluation, and payment," said Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD, CEO of HL7 International. "Our new AI Office positions HL7 as the trusted global convener for responsible, standards-driven AI innovation—ensuring these transformative technologies deliver on their promise to improve health for all."

To lead this initiative, HL7 has appointed Daniel Vreeman, DPT, as its first Chief AI Officer (CAIO). Dr. Vreeman will expand his current role as Chief Standards Development Officer to drive HL7's comprehensive AI strategy, including the HL7 AI Challenge, anti-fraud initiatives, and collaborations with regulators and industry partners globally.