The Standard

The HL7 FHIR at Scale Taskforce (FAST) is going international! As part of our mission to accelerate FHIR adoption and interoperability around the globe, FAST is taking its work beyond the U.S. to engage with the international health IT community. 

For the first time ever, FAST will be hosting a dedicated track at the HL7 FHIR Connectathon in Madrid, featuring two of our most critical and widely applicable Implementation Guides (IGs): 

🔐 FAST Security - https://build.fhir.org/ig/HL7/fhir-udap-security-ig/branches/main/ 
🆔 FAST Identity - https://build.fhir.org/ig/HL7/fhir-identity-matching-ig/ 

While these IGs were originally developed under the U.S. ONC's efforts to advance FHIR adoption, their guidance is intentionally broad and applicable globally. In fact, we're in the process of transitioning them to universal realm status, and your international input is vital. 

Why Participate? 
🌍 Help shape these key IGs to meet global needs 
🧪 Test and validate implementation with FAST experts
📚 Attend deep-dive breakout sessions focused on Security and Identity
🚀 Prepare for the future – FAST Security is a required standard for TEFCA FHIR exchange starting January 1, 2026 in the U.S. 

Clinical Trial Matching...Room for Improvement 

Clinical trials are essential to the advancement of patient care. The outcomes of a trial directly enable the future development of new treatment options for patients. Participants also benefit during the trial – they are provided access to potential treatments that may not be otherwise available to them – sometimes improving their overall prognosis.

Trial sponsors (the party responsible for the clinical trial) make significant investments, including procurement of products and services supporting the clinical trial workflow. According to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD), the mean direct cost to conduct a clinical trial per day is approximately $40,000 for Phase II and Phase III trials, and delays to launching a product can cost $800,000 per day.

With a very high percentage of trials delayed due to enrollment, there is much work to do to ensure clinical trials are sustainable and new therapies reach patients faster. Efficiencies gained in clinical trial matching benefit patients and their caregivers, sponsors and service providers.

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For a patient to be matched with the right trial, that patient’s medical history is compared with multiple trials’ criteria.   In concept, this is a simple process, but more information is often needed than is available in the patient’s record (in Part 1 we tell the story of Dr. Smith’s inability to easily obtain her patient’s medication history from his previous health care provider.) If, after a first evaluation, a patient isn’t disqualified, they must often undergo additional screening by their care team or more involved procedures required by the protocol sponsor to fully determine eligibility.

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Introduction

  Questions to Address:

• How can we build interoperability into this process with HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) – automating trial matching by fitting patient data and clinical trial criteria together like puzzle pieces?  

• Two separate-but-related teams within one of the world’s leading health data standards organizations are independently addressing aspects of this complicated puzzle.  Through more standardized patient medical records and machine-readable, digital clinical trial protocols, we can make progress toward a future state where trial matching is more accurate and seamless. You can be part of the journey!  

Early Bird Registration Ends Soon

Time is running out to take advantage of early bird registration discounts for an upcoming three-day online educational event that will offer practical insights on how to implement Health Level Seven's (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) application program interfaces (APIs).

Early bird discounts end March 31 for the event, “Strategy to Execution: Better Prior Authorization by Integrating Operations, FHIR and CMS-0057.”

Two days of interactive content delivery and demonstrations will be followed by a collaborative Connectathon testing event on day three that will provide implementers and developers with the opportunity to test FHIR-based solutions and exchange data with other FHIR interfaces.

If you’re looking to fast-track your organization’s efforts to use HL7 FHIR APIs to automate workflow, maximize efficiency and meet federal requirements of the CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule (CMS-0057-F), then don’t miss this virtual, hands-on training and testing event.

March 26 Session Features Demonstration and Lessons Learned from Cognizant and Infor

What’s the most effective way to streamline the exchange of data among providers and payers for a wide variety of purposes? Find out at the next HL7 Da Vinci Project Community Roundtable: “Transforming Healthcare End-to-End Data Conversations.”

This free webinar, to be held at 4 p.m. ET on March 26, will show how two Da Vinci member organizations are working together to transform provider/payer data conversations by applying Health Level Seven's (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) application programming interface (API) standard.

In addition to a demonstration, presenters will address the lessons learned so far in using the FHIR Implementation Guides for Coverage Requirements Discovery (CRD), Documentation Templates and Rules (DTR), Prior Authorization Support (PAS), Clinical Data Exchange (CDex), and Data Exchange for Quality Measures (DEQM), including Gaps in Care.  

Join the Vulcan FHIR® Accelerator on March 26 as we kick off a monthly forum inviting open dialogue on the development of a HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) implementation guide (IG) for the exchange of a digital clinical trial protocol. Input across the broader HL7 community will help ensure a more robust and widely applicable IG.

About

The Utilizing the Digital Protocol (UDP) project focuses on developing a FHIR IG for exchange of protocols aligned to ICH M11 (Clinical electronic Structured Harmonized Protocols). UDP is an umbrella project to accelerate exchange of ICH M11 compliant protocols through collaboration and integration of work products across Vulcan, CDISC and TransCelerate.     

Vulcan’s UDP team will:

• Provide regular project updates, offering a touchpoint for stakeholders who want to stay informed.
• Create a platform for discussion, allowing community members to raise questions, share insights, and engage more directly.

HL7, in collaboration with the Argonaut Project, is excited to announce the launch of a new website dedicated to the International Patient Access (IPA) standard:ipa.hl7.org. This site is designed to provide a central resource for healthcare organizations, policymakers and patients to understand, implement and support patient-controlled access to health data using the HL7® FHIR® standard.

A Milestone for Global Interoperability

IPA is a global standard aimed at empowering patients with access to their health records across different systems and countries. By defining a minimal yet meaningful set of FHIR-based profiles, IPA ensures that applications can seamlessly retrieve patient data regardless of geographic or system-specific differences.

The new website serves as a hub for information about IPA adoption, implementation guidance and ongoing development efforts. It provides insights into how healthcare systems worldwide can enable secure, authorized access to patient records through standardized APIs, reducing barriers to interoperability.

The HIMSS25 Conference, to be held March 3-6 in Las Vegas, will offer numerous opportunities to learn more about the important interoperability work of Health Level Seven International’s Da Vinci Project.

Project members will describe how the HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, or FHIR, standard can be used to support and integrate value-based care data exchange across communities.

Thanks to participating Da Vinci members AWS, Availity, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Epic, Humana, 1UpHealth, Cognizant, healow and InterSystems, Da Vinci will host a kiosk and five 20-minute thought leadership sessions in the Interop and Smart Pavilion, located in Caesars Forum, Academy Ballroom. Da Vinci also will be presenting three sessions at the HL7 anchor space.

Plus, Da Vinci will be presenting two 60-minute general education sessions.

This year, the HIMSS Conference will be held in three venues. In addition to Caesars Forum, events will take place at the Venetian Convention and Expo Center and Wynn Las Vegas.

For a complete schedule of events featuring Da Vinci content, at HIMSS25, visit: https://confluence.hl7.org/spaces/DVP/pages/325452688/Da+Vinci+at+HIMSS25

Da Vinci’s Feb. 26 Community Roundtable and Feb. 27 Joint Education Session with FAST to provide implementation resources.

Two free online events coming up soon will provide practical insights on how to improve interoperability by leveraging Health Level Seven’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) standard for APIs.

A Community Roundtable, to be held at 4 p.m. ET on Feb. 26, will focus on “Da Vinci’s Trebuchet: Launching Your Interoperability Implementations.”

The HL7 Da Vinci Project is a private-sector initiative that’s leveraging FHIR to improve data sharing in value-based care (VBC) arrangements. The goal of Da Vinci’s Trebuchet effort is to accelerate FHIR adoption and scaling of FHIR APIs through pilot projects.

Attendees at this month’s Community Roundtable will receive information to equip them with the knowledge and resources needed to successfully launch an implementation journey.

Pilot leaders and a panel of payer and provider implementers will share their expertise. After a level-setting session that reviews the purpose and current state of Trebuchet pilots, presenters will describe what’s involved with piloting and how to determine your organization’s readiness.

Attendees will learn about key elements of finding or creating a pilot, including identifying other parties of the willing, the role of vendors in your pilot design, Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) and Health Information Network (HIN) implications and how your current trading partners fit into your vision. The session will conclude with a panel of payers and providers who will share their piloting journey.

Register Today for the February Community Roundtable! 

To register and attend this free webinar, visit:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_T5IyY_NQQLybrIZdQ0zifw#/registration 

Second Event

The second event, to be held at 2 p.m. ET on Feb. 27, will be a joint session of FAST and Da Vinci focusing on alignment of Trebuchet and network exchange goals.

FAST stands for the FHIR at Scale Taskforce (FAST) Accelerator, which is working to identify ecosystem-wide barriers to deploying FHIR at scale, define solutions to address those barriers and develop infrastructural standards to support FHIR implementations. The desired outcome is a national API interoperability approach that enables consistent clinical data exchange using FHIR. 

The FAST Security Implementation Guide (IG) supports a multi-party trust framework within payer-payer and payer-provider networks. It supports implementing dynamic client registration in scalable exchange.

David Pyke, FAST technical director, will discuss the FAST IG with a focus on the implementer’s perspective, including:

• What to consider before and during implementation of the IG
• What is of primary importance as you begin and progress through implementation
• For payers, providers and vendors: What are the implications and experiences of the client, vendors and EHRs.

To attend, access the Zoom link on this page under the  Conference Call Schedule and Dial-ins section: https://confluence.hl7.org/display/DVP/Da+Vinci+Trebuchet+FHIR+Pilots   

Don’t miss these two opportunities to learn how to implement FHIR as a critical component of ramping up the exchange of clinical data to improve the quality of care.

Are you ready to go for 2025? 

Join the HL7 Da Vinci Project technical directors next week to learn the latest Da Vinci implementation guide developments. 

Ready to Go! 2025 HL7 Da Vinci Project Implementation Guide Progress, will be held online Jan. 22 at 4 p.m. ET.  As a participant, you will learn about Da Vinci’s use cases and the use case progress across the Da Vinci implementation guides. Da Vinci Project’s technical directors will provide an overview of all the use cases spanning clinical data exchange; coverage, transparency and burden reduction; quality and risk use cases; and foundational assets.  

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear an overview of each use case and learn about implementation guide functional enhancements and resources.  You will also learn the status and maturity of the guides to help inform your planning for your 2025 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) implementation staffing and allocations.