This weblog submit was co-authored by Greg Moore, Company Vice President, Microsoft Healthcare and Peter Lee, Company Vice President, Microsoft Healthcare.
One of many largest gatherings of healthcare IT builders will come collectively on the Microsoft campus subsequent week for HL7 FHIR DevDays, with the purpose of advancing the open customary for interoperable well being information, referred to as HL7® FHIR® (Quick Healthcare Interoperability Sources, pronounced “fireplace”). Microsoft is thrilled to host this vital convention on June 10-12, 2019 on our Redmond campus, and interact with the developer group on the whole lot from figuring out quick use circumstances to discovering methods for all of us to hack collectively in ways in which assist advance the FHIR specification.
We imagine that FHIR can be an extremely vital piece of the healthcare future. Its trendy design permits a brand new era of AI-powered functions and providers, and it offers an extensible, standardized format that makes it doable for all well being IT methods to not solely share information in order that it could get to the appropriate folks the place and after they want it, but in addition flip that information into information. Whereas actual work has been underway for a few years on HL7 FHIR, in the present day it has develop into probably the most crucial applied sciences in well being information administration, resulting in main shifts in each the expertise and coverage of healthcare.
Given the accelerating shift of healthcare to the cloud, FHIR within the cloud presents a doubtlessly historic alternative to advance well being information interoperability. Because of this, final summer season in Washington, DC, we stood with leaders from AWS, Google, IBM, Oracle, and Salesforce to make a joint pledge to undertake applied sciences that promote the interoperability of well being information. However everyone knows that FHIR shouldn’t be magic. To make the liberation of well being information a actuality, builders and different stakeholders might want to work collectively, and so that is why group occasions like HL7 FHIR DevDays are so vital. They permit us to check out new concepts in code and focus on quite a lot of areas, from the fundamentals of FHIR, to its use with medical gadgets, imaging, analysis, safety, privateness, and affected person empowerment.
The summer season of 2019 could certainly be the approaching of age for FHIR, with the brand new model of the usual referred to as “FHIR launch 4” (R4) reaching broader adoption, new product updates from Microsoft, and new interop insurance policies from the US authorities that can encourage the business to undertake FHIR extra broadly.
New FHIR customary progressing shortly
Healthcare builders can begin constructing with better confidence that FHIR R4 will assist join folks, information, and methods. R4 is the primary model to be “normative,” which implies that it’s an official a part of the longer term specification so that each one future variations can be backward appropriate.
Microsoft including extra FHIR performance to Azure
Microsoft is doing its half to comprehend advantages of well being information interop with FHIR, and in the present day we’re asserting that our open supply FHIR Server for Azure will assist FHIR R4 and is on the market in the present day.
We now have added a brand new information persistence supplier implementation to the open supply FHIR Server for Azure. The brand new SQL persistence supplier permits builders to configure their FHIR server occasion to make use of both an Azure Cosmos DB backed persistence layer, or a persistence layer utilizing a SQL database, comparable to Azure SQL Database. This can make it simpler for patrons to handle their healthcare functions by including extra capabilities for his or her most popular SQL supplier. It is going to lengthen the potential of a FHIR server in Azure to assist key enterprise workloads with new options comparable to chained queries and transactions.
Rising ecosystem of shoppers and companions
Our Azure API for FHIR already has a broad accomplice ecosystem in place and prospects utilizing the preview service to centralize disparate information.
Northwell Well being, the most important employer in New York state with 23 hospitals and 700 practices, is utilizing the Azure API for FHIR to construct interoperability into its information move answer to scale back extra days for sufferers. This ensures the affected person solely stays for the interval that’s required for scientific care and there are not any different non-clinical causes are occurring for delays in discharging the affected person.
Our open supply implementation of FHIR Server for Azure is already making a tighter suggestions loop with builders and companions for our merchandise who’ve shortly innovated on prime of this open supply venture.
Darena Options used the open supply FHIR Server for Azure to develop its Blue Button utility with a content material administration system (CMS) referred to as BlueButtonPRO. This can permit sufferers to import their information from CMS (by Blue Button). Extra importantly, it permits sufferers a easy and safe method to obtain, view, handle, and share healthcare information from any FHIR portals that they’ve entry to.
US Well being IT Coverage proposal to undertake FHIR
The DevDays convention additionally comes on the heels of the US authorities’s proposed ruling to enhance interoperability of well being information embodied within the 21st Century Cures Act, which incorporates the usage of FHIR.
Microsoft helps the main target in these proposed guidelines on decreasing limitations to interoperability as a result of we’re assured that the consequence can be good for sufferers. Interoperability and the seamless move of well being information will allow a extra knowledgeable and empowered shopper. We anticipate the well being business will reply with better effectivity, higher care, and value financial savings.
We’re at a pivotal second for well being interoperability, the place all of the bottom-up improvement within the FHIR group is assembly top-down coverage determination on the federal degree.
Well being information interoperability at Microsoft
Integrating well being information into our platforms is a large dedication for Microsoft, and Azure with FHIR is simply the beginning. Now that FHIR is baked into the core of Azure, the Microsoft cloud will natively communicate FHIR because the language for well being information as we plan for all our providers to inherit that capacity.
Healthcare in the present day and into the longer term will demand a broad perspective and artistic, collaborative problem-solving. Wanting forward, Microsoft intends to proceed an open, collaborative dialogue with the business and group, from FHIR DevDays to the hallways of our prospects and companions.
FHIR is part of our healthcare future, and FHIR DevDays is a superb place to begin designing for that future.
