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San Francisco 2016: Proceedings - Healthcare Forum

Healthcare Forum Members' Meetings

Notes are from closed member meetings on Monday, January 25 (11am-5:30pm) and Tuesday, January 26 (9am-5:30pm). The scheduled meeting for Wednesday afternoon was cancelled as we met objectives by end of day Tuesday.

Objective of Meeting

The objective of meetings on both days was the same. We have been discussing on Forum calls the possibility of collaborating with HL7 and tying this collaboration to the Forum’s “next steps” discussed in the Landscape White Paper that will be submitted to Cathy Fox by Wednesday of the week following the Forum meeting.

Summary

Forum members in attendance reviewed a 9-month Investigative Study report that Dr. Steve Hufnagel (an EA who works as a Contractor for both FHA and ONC) prepared for the HL7 execs, and was delivered and approved by the  HL7 at the early January 2016 HL7 meeting in Orlando. The Forum had already discussed this possible collaboration during the three prior weeky Forum calls and there was informal consensus that this should be the topic of detailed discussion during the closed meetings in San Francisco. The major question discussed was what would be the Healthcare Forum’s responsibilities/deliverables during the investigative period and how would it benefit members, actual and potential.

In the end, the meetings produced an outline of a 9-month investigative study that was sent by email to all Forum members. Members were asked if a narrative version of it could replace the final “next steps” portion of the Landscape paper (going to Cathy for review this week). There was no objection which, by prior arrangement, signified approval.  The outline of work, presented below under “Outputs”, was then offered as the next key topic of discussion when the Forum meets again on February 4.

Outputs

The Forum Work Group met in closed session in San Francisco and agreed:

  1. It makes sense to work with HL7.
  2. Healthcare “models, models everywhere” is a conundrum.
  3. The Forum can develop a unifying scheme by focusing on healthcare software development value chains (provided by Forum members).
  4. At the end of the 9-month investigative study period (during which we will collaborate with HL7), the Forum will have identified best practices for federating information models in healthcare to benefit the software development value chain to improve person-centered interoperation in healthcare.

The Forum will answer the following questions derived from item # 4 above:

  1. How will we identify best practices?
  2. What does it mean to federate information models (O-DEF may be part of the answer)?
  3. What information models will be federated?
  4. How will we determine what benefits accrue to software development value chains?

Next Steps

The outline of work will be described, in general terms, in the Landscape White Paper and will replace the more general language in the final draft reviewed already by Dave Lounsbury and soon on its way to Cathy Fox. The outline of work will be the next topic of discussion for the Forum call on February 4.

Links

None. All Forum members and those on the og-health mailing list have a copy of the Hufnagel presentation to HL7.