The Standard

Sessions Begin Today at HIMSS22

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but did you know it also takes a village to pursue interoperability? The HL7 Da Vinci Village is at HIMSS22 in Orlando this week, March 14-18. Also featured at the conference will be approximately 20 Da Vinci member organizations, presenting in 60-minute general education sessions and 20-minute Spotlight Theater and Innovation Live sessions—all aimed at helping to solve interoperability challenges.

Kiosk Village

HL7 Da Vinci Project Kiosk Village will be located in the Interoperability Showcase, Hall E Booth, #8240 at Kiosks 9 -16. Stop by to learn more about The Da Vinci Project’s efforts and how you can access resources.

Marketplace Kiosks at the HL7 Da Vinci Village include:

• Kiosk 12 & 13: HL7 Da Vinci Project
• Kiosk 9: healow Insights
• Kiosk 10: Cognizant
• Kiosk 11: InterSystems Corporation
• Kiosk 14: Anthem, Inc.
• Kiosk 15: Edifecs
• Kiosk 16: Optum

Member Booth HL7 Da Vinci Office Hours

Learn more by stopping by member booths when HL7 Da Vinci Project PMO staff are on hand to answer questions. They include:

• Change Healthcare, Booth # 1531, Wednesday, March 16, 10:30 – 11:15 a.m.                   
• Edifecs, Booth # 5171, Wednesday, March 16, 4 – 4:30 p.m.    
• MCG, Booth # 8185, March 15, 3:30 – 4 p.m.
• Smile CDR Inc., Booth #3901, March 15, 4:15 – 4:35 p.m.

Executives From Allscripts, healow Insights Will Share Their Latest Efforts Using FHIR Guidelines

The Da Vinci Project’s February Community Roundtable to be held Feb. 23 from 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. ET

In this month’s Community Roundtable, the HL7 Da Vinci Project is exploring how EHRs are key to interoperability success with a discussion on electronic health record (EHR) vendors featuring Allscripts and healow Insights. 

The session will showcase how the role of HL7® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR®) and the Da Vinci implementation guides are impacting their product roadmaps and related integration efforts to improve workflow, maximize efficiencies and improve patient care. Guest speakers will include:

• Jeff Danford, Sr. Principal Software Engineer, Allscripts
• Seth Paradis, Sales and Business Development Manager, Payer Engagement Division, healow Insights

On behalf of the HL7 US Realm Steering Committee (USRSC), we are pleased to share an update on last year's priorities and highlight our focus for 2022.

2021 Highlights

Visibility was a key theme of our work in 2021 and included supporting pilot work on a standards dashboard, tracking accelerator activity and promoting key ballots.

Before we dive into 2022, we want to highlight a few key points for all US Realm (USR) members.

• SMART v2: published new guidance on granular controls
• Bulk Data v2: published with numerous new features 
• Errata release of Consolidated CDA (C-CDA): companion guide to support January 2022 ballot  
• C-CDA Companion Guide: January 2022 ballot to add USCDI v2 guidance
• US FHIR Core - January 2022 ballot: to add USCDI v2 guidance
• Hosted reviews on HL7 Standards Dashboard Prototype
• C-CDA Web Publishing Trial Draft using FHIR Structure Definition
• Facilitated US@ project with ONC team

The Da Vinci Project’s January Community Roundtable to be held Jan. 26 from 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. ET

The Da Vinci Project’s Year-End Meeting to Be Held December 8, 2021

The HL7 Da Vinci Project will hold a combined virtual Community Roundtable and Member Forum on December 8 titled "Are You  Ready for 2022? Hear Progress and Plans, Available Testing tools and Implementation Perspectives." During this meeting,  Da Vinci’s program management office will share insights on the year’s achievements, as well as the latest on strategic planning. They will top it off with a synopsis of Da Vinci’s priorities for 2022.

The agenda includes:

The Da Vinci Project’s October Community Roundtable, to be held Oct. 27 from 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. EDT, will feature Clinical Data Exchange (CDex)

This “Swiss army knife” of implementation guides (IGs) is responsible for identifying, documenting and constraining specific patterns of exchange so that providers and payers can reliably share patient information and coordinate care.

The scope of the CDex encompasses defining combinations of exchange methods with specific payloads, search criteria, conformance, provenance, and other relevant requirements, to support specific exchanges of clinical information between providers and and/or payers. CDex is also responsible for aiding in risk adjustment and quality reporting--and it helps payers to identify whether a requested service is necessary and appropriate.

The roundtable, titled, “Harnessing Clinical Data Exchange (CDex) to Improve Performance within Value-Based Care,” will give a current snapshot of the functionality, benefits and capabilities of CDex, helping providers to share the clinical data they have generated with payers and other industry partners.

At the roundtable, members of the Providence team will share their strategy for using CDex to support payer value-based care arrangements focusing on their initial target to achieve supplemental data exchange.

Presenters will include:

• Viet Nguyen, MD, Technical Director, HL7 Da Vinci Project, and Clinical Informaticist, Stratametrics, LLC
• Semira Singh, Product Manager, Population Health Informatics, Providence
• Michael Westover, Vice President, Population Health Informatics, Providence

Come to the roundtable and learn how HL7 is making progress on CDex, with its eye on what remains to be conquered to provide the fully maximized data exchange needed to support value-based care. The good news is, HL7® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR®) is helping to drive interoperability forward, and Da Vinci is poised to accelerate that data exchange in such a way that it will greatly reduce the burden between providers and payers.

Da Vinci Project's Monthly Meeting to Describe Progress on Price Cost Transparency and Risk Adjustment Initiatives on Wednesday Event, 9/22 at 4:00 pm ET

Important updates on two implementation guide initiatives and a demo of how standards could support prior authorization burden reduction are on the agenda for the next Community Roundtable of the Da Vinci Project.

The roundtable will begin with an update from the project management office of the Da Vinci Project, which will feature updates on the status of the Price Cost Transparency and Risk Adjustment Implementation Guides (IGs). These efforts to use HL7® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR®) are more complex than previous initiatives. Both efforts anticipate challenges that the industry will face to make healthcare costs more transparent and to accurately reflect patients’ comprehensive conditions and risks related to reimbursement for coverage.

After the update, the prior authorization demonstration will show how FHIR IGs can be used to reduce administrative challenge of anticipating prior authorization documentation requirements, a nagging concern within the industry.

Sessions at HIMSS21 Offer Glimpses into Progress, Potential New Uses for the Standard

After a hiatus of nearly 18 months, a slimmed-down, COVID-sensitive HIMSS 2021 Conference still managed to provide extensive insights into several major trends within the healthcare IT industry.

Along the dual tracks of federal regulations forbidding information blocking and the need for improved data exchange to facilitate, there were many discussions about the capabilities of HL7® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) to support the industry.

The HL7 FHIR community had opportunities at the conference’s Interoperability Showcase to update the industry on dramatic progress by its accelerator groups to advance the use of FHIR in areas where data exchange is essential.

Recent Initiatives of the ONC’s FHIR at Scale Taskforce (FAST) and Update on Payer-to-Payer Mandate are Key Topics for Wednesday Event, 8/25 at 4:00 pm ET

The success of the HL7® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR®) standard is becoming increasingly evident.

Successful case studies are emerging. For example, a recently published HL7 case study documents how MultiCare Connected Care and Regence are recognizing significant cost savings by using a FHIR implementation guide standard to definitively ascertain that medication reconciliation has been completed. This case study can be found at https://www.hl7.org/participate/case-studies/index.cfm .

But these isolated successes beg the question – can FHIR be used more broadly, and implemented more widely across the country, handling a multiplicity of interactions across dozens of healthcare organizations simultaneously?

That is the task given to the ONC’s FHIR at Scale Taskforce (FAST), which is seeking to determine solutions and opportunities to influence emerging solutions.

Progress by the ONC FAST effort is of prime importance to the dissemination of FHIR solutions to solve information exchange challenges in healthcare. The panel’s progress over the past year will be one of the topics of the Da Vinci Project’s monthly Community Roundtable event, to be held from 4 to 5:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, August 25.

HL7 Da Vinci Roundtable  on July 28 from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. ET to Feature Payer-to-Payer Data Exchange

Join the Da Vinci Project next Wednesday at its July Community Roundtable titled "Payer-to-Payer Data Exchange: Rising to the Opportunities and the Challenges." The session will focus on the use of HL7's 's Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) for payer-to-payer data exchange, highlighting the Payer Data Exchange (PDex) use case.

Presenters for the session include:

• Michael Gould, business lead - interoperability at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
• Patrick Murta, chief interoperability architect & solutions architecture fellow, Humana
• Heather Kennedy Tanner, director of enterprise architecture, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee