WHY STANDARDS?
On July 30, as part of the second Blue Button Developers Conference at the White House, a broad coalition of health systems, health plans, and other health IT stakeholders committed to real-world testing of the soon to be published HL7® FHIR® Bulk Data implementation guide (IG).
The announcement was made on stage by HL7 International CEO Dr. Charles Jaffe, later joined by Steven Posnack from ONC and Dr. Shafiq Rab of Rush University System for Health. More than 20 early adopters who have committed to advance this important use of HL7 FHIR were identified.
Much of the focus around HL7 FHIR APIs to date has involved transactions representing a single patient. While those use cases are important, especially for patients desiring more seamless access to their data via their smartphones, the FHIR Bulk Data Implementation Guide (IG) unleashes FHIR’s potential to revolutionize population health by enabling new services powered by big data. The standardized approach offered by the Bulk Data IG is being used by CMS in its new Data at the Point of Care (DPC) pilot and could help transform the ways healthcare providers and health plans share data for quality improvement and cost accountability.
The Bulk Data IG is the result of a two-year effort funded by ONC’s cooperative agreement with HL7 in partnership with the SMART team at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School.
The following organizations will participate in real-world testing of the HL7 FHIR Bulk Data IG, and Steven noted ONC’s willingness to support these organizations. Participants will collaborate on providing a common set of artifacts, tools and services with an aim to lower standards implementation costs by making them as reusable and transferable as practicable.
Committed organizations include:
| ORGANIZATION |
NAME |
| Anthem Inc. |
Sheryl Turney |
| BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina |
Joe Bastante and Robert Emerson |
| BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina |
Dr. Shawn Stinson |
| BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee |
Nick Coussoule and Heather Kennedy |
| Boston Children’s Hospital/SMART |
Dr. Ken Mandl |
| Cambia Health Solutions |
Laurent Rotival |
| CVSHealth (Aetna) |
James Murray |
| Florida Blue |
Amit Shah |
| Humana |
Heather Cox |
| Intermountain Healthcare |
Marc Probst |
| Jefferson Health |
Neil Gomes |
| Manifest Medex |
Claudia Williams and David Kates |
| Marshfield Clinic Health System and Security Health Plan |
Dr. Greg Robinson |
| Medical University of South Carolina & Health Sciences South Carolina |
Dr. Leslie Lenert |
| Medigold |
Michael Demand |
| Mount Sinai Health System (NY) |
Mike Berger and Dave Kerwar |
| MultiCare Health System and Physicians of Southwest Washington |
Melanie Matthews |
| OCHIN |
Jennifer Stoll |
| OrthoVirginia |
Terri Ripley |
| Oscar Health |
Danny Dvinov |
| Rush University System for Health |
Dr. Shafiq Rab |
| Trinity Health |
Marcus Shipley and Michael DeBets |
| U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs |
Dr. Jonathan Nebeker |
Signed,
Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD
HL7 International CEO
Steven Posnack, MS, MHS
Executive Director, Office of Technology, ONC
We are delighted to announce that HL7 has received a letter of support applauding our work in standards development from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma.
Based on the impact that HL7 has made on improving interoperability and current adoption of the HL7® FHIR® standard, CMS has shared their priorities for collaboration in the coming year.
HL7 will be developing a strategy over the next several weeks, with input from CMS, to meet each of these priorities. I will share more information about this in the near future. In the meantime, I'd like to thank you for your contributions to the work of this organization and ask you to join me as we focus our efforts on meeting these needs.
To view the letter in its entirety, please click here.
Sincerely,
HL7 International CEO
Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD