The Standard

The healthcare industry is in a state of rapid innovation. From aggregated health data apps to telemedicine and digital front doors, the pandemic has propelled consumer demand for innovative and enhanced healthcare solutions. Additionally, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) mandates on interoperability and HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) have accelerated this innovation by helping bring multiple healthcare stakeholders together to provide better access to quality health data across the board.

Within this context, digital healthcare interoperability has now become a digital supply chain challenge as healthcare providers must retrieve data or information from systems of record, such as electronic health record (EHR) systems, into destination systems and consumers across multiple organizational boundaries while ensuring security and data privacy.

The pandemic taught us that innovation is key in healthcare - organizations with unique digital experiences thrived while those that struggled to adapt suffered. Consumer expectations have also soared in recent years as patients and members expect a frictionless digital experience from their healthcare organizations and access to their data across the healthcare ecosystem. Interoperability - the ability to share the right data across stakeholders, is a key, if not the most important, building block of this movement.

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

Invite your product and technical teams to register for March's HL7 Da Vinci Project Community Roundtable Ready, Set, Test: Prepare Now to Test Da Vinci Implementation Guides.

This essential primer will delve into the IGs and help you identify what you want to test, who needs to be involved, and the tools involved in the testing process so that you are prepared for HL7 and CMS Connectathons.

This session will provide brief updates on Implementation Guides (IGs) and use cases as well as resources to aid testing and Connectathon preparation efforts.

With this basic knowledge you can create your own roadmap to readiness while helping improve industry interoperability.

• Vanessa Candelora, HL7 Da Vinci Project Manager, and Senior Consultant, Point-of-Care-Partners
• Robert Dieterle, Da Vinci Sr. Advisor and Chief Executive Officer, EnableCare, LLC
• Yan Heras, HL7 Da Vinci Project Lead and Technical Advisor, and Principal Informaticist, Optimum eHealth

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.

Computable Publishing LLC was pleased to sponsor the January 2022 HL7 Working Group Meeting, which aligns with our work towards creating software tools that support data exchange for scientific knowledge with HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®). In fact, many already know that our CEO, Brian Alper, is the leader of the Evidence-Based Medicine on the FHIR project (EBMonFHIR) and the COVID-19 Knowledge Accelerator (COKA) initiative.

Background & Expansion

EBMonFHIR (sponsored by the CDS, BR&R and CQI HL7 work groups) previously created Citation, Evidence, EvidenceReport and Evidenceariable Resources. The project expansion to the COKA initiative now involves 12 active working group meetings per week. The combination of volunteer efforts from about 100 people in many countries along with software tools (provided gratis to COKA by Computable Publishing LLC) has produced impressive results to advance evidence-based medicine (EBM) and promote the HL7 FHIR standard to the EBM community.

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 CodeX HL7 FHIR Accelerator will host three public calls next week covering project milestones in the Radiation Therapy Treatment Data (RTTD), Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies[i] (REMS) and Prior Authorization in Oncology use cases.

• Join the CodeX Prior Authorization in Oncology team on February 15 (3-4 ET) for an update on its radiation oncology pilot planning. Use case team members will discuss progress relative to breast and prostate cancer patient demographic and clinical data elements discovery and health data standards mapping (e.g., mCODE and Da Vinci Project implementation guides). Find call information here.  
• Join the RTTD team on February 16 (11-12 ET) when they will share recent project achievements, including experience exchanging synthetic patient data using mCODE from a radiation oncology information test system to a FHIR server. Find call information here.
• Join the CodeX REMS team on February 17 (1-2 ET) to explore the value of an interoperable REMS ecosystem using FHIR and other health data standards, view details of the open source REMS on FHIR prototype under development and discuss CodeX membership details and benefits, including driving the REMS use case work forward. Find call information here.

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

The CodeX team believes the Minimal Common Oncology Data Elements (mCODE™) standard could be leveraged to achieve more equitable health outcomes for cancer patients from diverse populations. As part of our exploration, we are releasing a white paper, “Advancing Health Equity in Cancer Research, Care, and Surveillance,” available here and will host a companion webinar, "Leveraging Interoperability to Drive Health Equity in Cancer Care, Research and Surveillance." Please join us on January 27, 2022 at 1PM ET by registering here.