HIMSS17 Recap: An Industry on FHIR

09

MARCH, 2017

Healthcare Industry News
HL7 News

HIMSS17 (the Health Information Management Systems Society’s annual conference) brought together more than 40,000 people in Orlando, Florida for 5 days last week to discuss health information technology and management systems.

The conference was a flurry of conversation and learning, making it next to impossible to capture everything. Several key announcements and key stats caught our attention, however. Here are the four things from HIMSS17 you want to be sure you didn’t miss.

Argonaut Leader Explains Significance of New FHIR Guide at HIMSS17

If interoperability standards are “ingredients,” then the new Argonaut guide for high-priority use cases is like a “cookbook,” showing how to put it all together, explained Argonaut leader Micky Tripathi.

The Argonaut Project, launched under the HL7 umbrella in 2014, is comprised of both vendors and providers seeking to accelerate the use of FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources). Tripathi explained that the new guide, released earlier in February, is significant and can help mark FHIR “relevant and usable.”

View the Implementation Guide here.

Google Adds FHIR Power to HL7 with Joint Initiative

In other FHIR-related news, at HIMSS17 Google and the HL7 FHIR Foundation announced a new joint initiative. Google is going to provide cloud technology for the FHIR development ecosystem, enabling innovators to create new applications for the popular interoperability standard.

Health IT Analytics covered the story on their website.

New OCR Administration Announces Priorities & Explains Audits

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) deputy director also presented at HIMSS17, sharing the organization’s priorities heading into the new administration’s term. Many of those priorities centered on clarifying guidelines for healthcare providers, including guidance on texting with patients, sharing mental health patients’ data, and social media use. However, the organization will also focus on security barriers and interoperability issues.

Provider audits remain on the agenda as well, with the organization currently in stage 2 of its audit process, as it seeks to collect data on common risks and best practices.

Health IT News covered the session in more detail on their website. Click here to read their article.

Healthcare IT Careers Looking Better and Better, Says New Report

The number of healthcare IT professionals who reported feeling “extremely optimistic” about their career opportunities has increased by 47 percent since 2014, says the new Healthcare IT Market Report released by Pivot Point Consulting during HIMSS17.

Other key findings:

• Workweeks for Health IT professionals are getting shorter;
• More than half of those surveyed were satisfied with their current role; and
• 28% of those surveyed had been in the field for between 3-5 years and a whopping 66% had been in the industry for more than 6 years.

Check out the full report here.

Missed a Major Story? Get Caught Up.

If you want to catch anything you might have missed, most full conference registration passes include access to the online recordings of the educational sessions.