Federal health agencies have entered an era where data interoperability-enabled solutions play a critical role. Government leaders can harness the innovative and proven capabilities referenced in this article to deliver on their essential missions.
Background
In 2020, two major events laid the foundation for this era of interoperability.
Pandemic Response: The first was the coronavirus pandemic, which led to unprecedented needs for health data in support of agency missions. Since its start, decision-makers have required more access to and insights from these data (e.g., clinical records, administrative claims, patient experience) than ever before.
Interoperability Rules: The second was the finalization of the ONC and CMS-led 21st Century Cures Act interoperability rules. These mandates substantially expanded agencies’ ability to leverage health data solutions (e.g., algorithms, applications, and automation) at scale.
Report from Virtual FHIR DevDays 2020 on HL7 Da Vinci Project Use Cases
Developers are fine-tuning ways to use the HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) standard to reduce communication challenges and decision impediments between providers and payers.
Working on use cases involving coverage and burden reduction, the HL7 Da Vinci Project is refining early versions of standards and developing implementation guides for value based care (VBC). Speaking to more than 150 attendees during the virtual HL7 FHIR DevDays event, Dr. Viet Nguyen, Da Vinci Project Technical Director, noted that the coverage and burden reduction use cases are intended to address workflows around provider-payer interactions. FHIR implementation guides are then created based on a set of use cases.
Coverage Requirements Discovery
One use case, Coverage Requirements Discovery, gives providers real-time access to payer approval requirements, documentation and rules at point of service to reduce provider burden and support treatment planning. In its essence, this would answer a provider’s question about whether a procedure or treatment needs a prior authorization from a payer. The aim is to use CDS Hooks to supply an answer to a clinician posing the request within his or her workflow. Work is continuing on developing an implementation guide for this use case.
HL7 is gearing up for a fall season that is chock full of flexible and convenient FHIR training opportunities for busy people like working professionals and students.
The HL7 FHIR® Applications Roundtable: A Showcase of FHIR-Based Solutions
An Attendee's Perspective
This month, I had the pleasure of attending the HL7 FHIR Applications Roundtable at Duke University. As an MD that recently defected into the software world, I'm going to take a few paragraphs to briefly explain the significance of HL7 and Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) to my non-technical friends and medical school colleagues.
HL7 FHIR: A Standard You Can Use Today!
A Recap of the HL7 FHIR Applications Roundtable
“A standard is not used because we created it. It is a standard because people use it.”
This familiar quote from Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD, CEO of HL7, could have been the motto for the inaugural FHIR Applications Roundtable held this July at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
As so many of the smiling attendees attested, this was indeed a very different kind of meeting.
The premise was to show how widespread HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) usage already is, and the answer was – more than we could have ever imagined.
The FHIR is spreading
Although FHIR is currently designated as a Standard for Trial Use (STU), it has already captivated the development community who is drawn to its advanced, elegant technology platform. The roundtable, like most FHIR events, cements the impression that interoperability through FHIR is not a pipe dream, but a burgeoning reality.