ONC hosted an all-virtual Tech Forum, convening industry experts and federal partners to continue the summertime tradition we started with the “Interoperability Forum” in 2017. We discussed the exciting technical innovations that are happening in health IT and have the potential to revolutionize the delivery of healthcare in support of improved health outcomes.
Session
Welcome and Opening Remarks
- Steve Posnack, Deputy National Coordinator
Plenary Session: Fireside Chat with the National Coordinator
- Don Rucker, MD, National Coordinator, ONC
- Denise Hines, DHA, PMP, FHIMSS, Chief Americas Officer, HIMSS
Break
Plenary Session: Will Population Level Data and Bulk FHIR Change the Way We Pay for Healthcare?
This session will explore how standards based approaches, such as HL7® FHIR® and bulk data access Application Programming Interface (API), play a role in population level health management and the shift to value-based care. Join the panelists as they discuss the importance of bulk data sharing, obstacles ahead, and the potential impact of these approaches on the way we pay for healthcare.
- Kenneth Mandl, MD, MPH, Director Computational Health Informatics Program, Boston Children’s Hospital, Moderator
- Michelle Schreiber, MD, Director Quality Measurement and Value-Based Incentives Group, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- Jim Sohr, Chairman and CEO, Powered Health
- Jonathan Bush, Executive Chairman, Firefly Health
- William Gregg, MD, MS, MPH, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer and VP Clinical Informatics, HCA Healthcare
Lunch
Working Sessions #1
Track 1: Content Exchange Standards
Addressing Barriers to Laboratory Interoperability
This session will describe challenges related to semantic interoperability and messaging standards in laboratory exchange, as well as possible solutions, current industry efforts, and long-term approaches to addressing these challenges.
- Vaishali Patel, ONC, Moderator
- Swapna Abhyankar, MD, Regenstrief Institute
- Steven Lane, MD, Sutter Health
- Clem McDonald, National Institutes of Health
- Ila Singh, MD, TRUU-Lab / Texas Children's Hospital
- Michael Waters, Food and Drug Administration
Track 2: Technical Framework for Trusted Exchange
Innovation in HIE
Advances in health IT have enabled health information exchanges to evolve beyond simple "push and pull" use cases. Panelists will discuss the latest in data exchange capabilities and ways their platforms are providing additional value to users across the care continuum.
- Eric Heflin, Sequoia Project, Moderator
- Cody Johansen, Utah Health Information Network
- Jane Lee, MD, Delaware Health Information Network
- Tom Moore, Healthix
- Tim Pletcher, Michigan Health Information Network
Track 3: API Standards and Innovation
FHIR Implementation & Inferno
This session will explore the FHIR deployment lifecycle, from idea to endpoint, identify areas where automation is available now, and aspects of FHIR implementation that remain ripe for innovation. Panelists will describe FHIR development best practices, and share rapid deployment success stories. The presentation will include a demonstration of test-driven rapid FHIR development including the Inferno toolset and automation challenges.
- John Bender, Moderator
- Reece Adamson, MITRE
- Keith Boone, Audacious Inquiry
- Eric Haas, Health eData, Inc.
- Brett Marquard, WaveOne Associates
Track 4: Tech in the Continuum of Care
Health IT in Specialty Care Settings
This panel will focus on ONC and stakeholder-led collaborative efforts to identify and crosswalk clinical priorities to ONC certification with specific specialty examples including pediatrics and ambulatory surgical centers. The session will highlight ONC’s approach, tools, and resources available to help stakeholders achieve successful health IT implementation to meet their needs.
- Al Taylor, ONC, Moderator
- Chip Hart, Physician’s Computer Company
- Shelly Spiro, Pharmacy Health IT Collaborative
- Alex Taira, Ambulatory Surgery Center Association
Break
Working Sessions #2
Track 1: Content Exchange Standards
Laboratory Data Exchange with Public Health: What it is, how it works and where it is going?
This session will provide an overview of the technology behind the sharing of lab orders and results among the clinical community, public health labs, and public health disease investigation programs.
The discussion will cover challenges with data workflows standards, on-boarding, and terminologies.
- Dan Chaput, ONC, Moderator
- Rachel Abbey, ONC, Moderator
- Jim Collins, Michigan Department of Health
- Jason Hall, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Janet Hamilton, Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists
- Michelle Meigs, Association of Public Health Laboratories
- Walter Suarez, Kaiser Permanente
Track 2: Technical Framework for Trusted Exchange
Systems Security in Health Information Exchange
Cybersecurity remains one of the most critical issues facing the healthcare industry. Panelists will discuss challenges involved in protecting health information and best practices for network management and access control.
- Luis Maas, MD, PhD, EMR Direct, Moderator
- Jenn Behrens, PhD, San Diego Health Connect & Kuma
- Muhammad Chebli, NextGen Healthcare
- Lindsey Ferris, Chesapeake Regional Information System for Our Patients
Track 3: API Standards and Innovation
Advancing Trust of Third-Party Applications: Issues and software solutions
The 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule requires that Health IT Modules provide a standardized API for patient services, including the ability for patients to use third-party applications of their choice. This session will explore industry implications of direct-to-consumer health IT products, privacy and security policies and considerations for the future.
- John Moehrke, By Light Professional IT Services, Moderator
- Julie Maas, EMR Direct
- JP Pollak, The Commons Project Foundation
- Mark Scrimshire, Onyx Health
Track 4: Tech in the Continuum of Care
Advances in Opioid Prescribing through Health IT
This session will address the tools and resources currently available to reduce substance use disorders , for example the PDMP EHR integration implementation guide, the new SCRIPT standard for eRx in ONC certification, and clinical decision support related to CDC's opioid guideline. In this session, presenters will share updates in prescribing patterns and data quality considerations.
- JaWanna Henry, ONC, Moderator
- Verlyn Hawks, Utah Navajo Health System
- Ronald Larsen, State of Utah, Department of Commerce
- Emily Mitchell, Accenture Federal Services
- Bryn Rhodes, Database Consulting Group
- Jaime Smith, Surescripts
- Eugenia McPeek Hinz MD MS, Associate Chief Medical Information Officer for Duke University Health System
Session
Welcome and Opening Remarks
- Avinash Shanbhag, Acting Executive Director, Office of Technology, ONC
Plenary Session: Advancing Interoperability Together Globally
This session will provide an overview of the Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP), the GDHP Interoperability Work Stream, and the recently published GDHP interoperability white paper. The panelists will engage in a discussion on what they are doing to advance interoperability within their nations, and what efforts we can take collaboratively to advance interoperability globally. This will be a timely discussion as the GDHP white papers were published in July 2020.
- Don Rucker, MD, National Coordinator, ONC, Moderator
- NT Cheung, MD, Head of Information Technology & Health Information and Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Hong Kong Hospital Authority
- Tim Kelsey, Senior Vice President of Analytics International, HIMSS
- Mario Voltolina, Chief Technology Officer and EVP Product Engineering and Operations, Canada Health Infoway
- Herko Coomans, International Digital Health Policy Coordinator, Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport
Break
Working Sessions #3
Track 1: Content Exchange Standards
Advancing Interoperability through USCDI, SVAP, and US FHIR Core
This session will outline operational details of the new ONC U.S. Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) New Data Element and Class Submission System, detailing how submissions will be assessed, and how the USCDI and other standards will progress through the Standards Version Advancement Process (SVAP). In addition, panelists will highlight work happening within the HL7 community on the FHIR® US Core Implementation Guide Release 3.
- Brett Andriesen, ONC, Moderator
- Rob Anthony, ONC
- Christina Caraballo, Audacious Inquiry, HITAC
- Brett Marquard, WaveOne Associates
- Terry O'Malley, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, HITAC
- Al Taylor, ONC
Track 2: Technical Framework for Trusted Exchange
HIE Data Integration – Challenges and Opportunities
The use of health data drives clinical care, research and development, and population health. Panelists will discuss their experiences managing, aggregating and using health data for a variety of use cases.
- Alex Kontur, ONC, Moderator
- George Hripcsak, MD, Columbia University
- Martin Lupinetti, HealthShare Exchange
- Mitra Rocca, Food and Drug Administration
Track 3: API Standards and Innovation
FHIR Endpoint Discovery and Monitoring
FHIR servers are proliferating across the nation, making health data more readily available for application developers and consumers. This session will feature perspectives on FHIR endpoint discovery and monitoring from several industry stakeholders. It will also debut the "Lantern" system, being used to monitor the availability and adoption of FHIR API service-based URLs by select users across the U.S.
- Matt Rahn, ONC, Moderator
- Ryan Howells, CARIN Alliance
- Wayne Kubick, HL7
- Matt Mayer, MITRE
- Mike Nosal, MITRE
Track 4: Tech in the Continuum of Care
The Impact and Future of Telehealth
This session will address the impact telemedicine has on behavioral health and public health. Panelists will discuss ways to leverage technology for quality care and improved patient trust in health technology innovations.
- Andy Gettinger, MD, ONC, Moderator
- William (Bill) England, Health Resources and Services Administration
- Maryam Gholami, Providence St. Joseph Health
- Dr. Joe Kvedar, American Telemedicine Association
- Lisa McLaughlin, Workit Health
Lunch
Working Sessions #4
Track 1: Content Exchange Standards
A Look Toward the Future of Clinical Resources
This session will highlight emerging work in the clinical space, including an overview of work prepared for ONC on potential future data elements for USCDI, and new developments across the industry for USCDI management and exchange using C-CDA and FHIR.
- Ryan Argentieri, ONC, Moderator
- Gay Dolin, MSN, RN, Namaste Informatics
- Rob McClure, MD, MD Partners, Inc.
- Mark Savage, UCSF's Center for Digital Health Innovation
- Al Taylor, ONC
Track 2: Technical Framework for Trusted Exchange
Ecosystem Infrastructure Considerations to Facilitate Exchange
The HL7 FHIR standard enables new opportunities for sharing health information. Panelists will discuss the transition from document-based exchange to exchange using FHIR.
- Alix Goss, Imprado, Moderator
- Luke Doles, New York eHealth Collaborative
- Patrick Murta, Humana
- Dheeraj Pal, New York eHealth Collaborative
- Jason Vogt, MEDITECH
- John Loonsk, Association of Public Health Laboratories and Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Track 3: API Standards and Innovation
API Authorization Scopes: Designing accessible authorization scopes for end-users
The 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule requires that Health IT Modules enable patients to authorize access to health information at the FHIR resource level. Panelists will share industry efforts to standardize and gain consensus around intelligible authorization scopes, and approaches Health IT Modules can take to present authorization scopes to end-users.
- Josh Mandel, Microsoft, Moderator
- Janet Campbell, Epic
- Brendan Keeler, Redox
- David Pyke, Ready Computing, Inc.
- Nikolai Ryzhikov, Health Samurai
- Jenni Syed, Cerner Corporation
Track 4: Tech in the Continuum of Care
Advancements in Interoperability of Social Determinants of Health Data
ONC supports collecting and sharing social determinants of health (SDOH) data through standards and certification, policy, and coordination across agencies and various stakeholders. This session will discuss standards gaps related to the collection of SDOH data and opportunities for enhanced interoperability. Panelists will discuss practical implementation examples, including development and use of FHIR for standardized exchange, tools to enable enhanced communication between provider and user types, and challenges of implementation of electronic referrals between health care and human services providers.
- Samantha Meklir, ONC, Moderator
- Arun Natarajan, ONC, Moderator
- Nicole Blumenfeld, 2-1-1 San Diego
- Evelyn Gallego, EMI Advisors / Gravity
- DaShawn Groves, CoRIE, DHCF
- Leslie Wainwright, Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation Leadership
Break
Working Sessions #5
Track 1: Content Exchange Standards
Integrating Clinical and Administrative Information
This session will highlight work on the HL7 DaVinci Project’s Payer Data Exchange (PDex) Implementation Guide as well as other use cases and solutions under development. PDex allows payers/health plans to create and exchange a member patient’s health history with providers using clinical resources based on FHIR US Core Profiles to more effectively manage patient care. Panelists will discuss findings of the FHIR at Scale Taskforce (FAST), to accelerate development, scalability, and the use of intermediaries for reliable routing.
- Dr. Tom Mason, ONC, Moderator
- Meryl Bloomrosen, Premier
- John Kelly, Edifecs
- Sagran Moodley, United Health Group
- Viet Nguyen, Stratametrics
- Denise St Clair, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Track 2: Technical Framework for Trusted Exchange
Structural, Process and Outcomes Measures for Networks Enabling Exchange through the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA)
Efforts are underway to implement the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), which will facilitate exchange of electronic health information between Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs) and their participants. During this session, the TEFCA Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE), The Sequoia Project, will share an overview of recommended measure concepts and suggested timing for implementation and use of the metrics to assess the performance of QHINs and their role in enabling exchange nationally. Experts will provide input on the RCE’s proposed metrics, with time for audience questions, all of which will help inform the RCE’s final development of metrics for QHINs exchanging electronic health information under TEFCA.
- Vaishali Patel, ONC, Moderator
- Julia Adler-Milstein, Center for Clinical Informatics and Improvement Research, University of California San Francisco
- Dave Cassel, Carequality
- Stephanie Rizk, RTI
- Mariann Yeager, The Sequoia Project
Track 3: API Standards and Innovation
Population APIs are Here! What Next?
In this session, panelists will discuss the 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule requirement that Health IT Modules make available a standardized API for population services. Panelists will address how standardized population-based APIs can enable big data, machine learning and public health innovations.
- Avinash Shanbhag, ONC, Moderator
- Paula Braun, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Ryan Bramble, CRISP
- Dan Gottlieb, Boston Children’s Hospital
- Ramesh Rasker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Track 4: Tech in the Continuum of Care
Interoperability to Support Care, Community Information Exchange and Referrals
This panel will discuss and explore standards, high priority use cases and overall gaps in delivery of data across the health IT continuum for community information exchange and referrals. Discussions will focus on identifying solutions and innovations for data exchange (i.e. APIs and FHIR implementation guides), artificial intelligence and other novel approaches.
- Ryan Argentieri, ONC, Moderator
- Arun Natarajan, ONC, Moderator
- Grace Chen, LucidAct Health
- Kyna Fong, Elation Health
- Dr. Erin Holve, DHCF