This week I had a chance to attend the eHealth Exchange Annual meeting to learn more about what’s happening with their network along with a wide variety of inteorperability topics. The conference covered a wide range of topics from public health to TEFCA and everything in between. Here are some of the highlights I heard at the conference along with some additional commentary.
We often hear about the times that health data exchange should be happening, but isn’t yet. When you attend a meeting like the eHealth Exchange annual meeting, you learn how they have over 2 billion transactions happening every month. Everyone agrees that there’s more work to be done with sharing of health data, but it’s also important to remember how much data sharing is happening now.
I’d never seen these 12 TEFCA Exchange purposes that apply to all the QHINs. A very insightful look on where TEFCA is headed.
Talking with one expert at the conference, they highlighted how eHealth Exchange was far ahead on their implementation of FHIR versus most of the other networks. This roadmap illustrates some of that sentiment. Plus, I couldn’t resist the FHIR pun.
Reciprocity, trust, and what is treatment really has become some of the hottest topics in the world of health data exchange. Lots of things to still figure out. Also, it was interesting to hear the “if you see something, say something” applied to the community. That’s the beauty of the network. Although, as a network participant it can also be hard to know what is legitimate and what isn’t.
Some great insights from Jim Jirjis’ keynote. Probably the most important is taking a second to celebrate how far we’ve come with health data sharing. We all know there’s a long way to go, but we should celebrate what we have accomplished. Although, we should continue to focus not just on sharing data that never gets used, but sharing data with a purpose that creates value.
What do you think of this analogy between pipes, plumbing, and clean water with health data interoperability? Jirjis described how plumbing wouldn’t work great if we didn’t have standard pipe sizes and fittings. Clean water is similar to clean data and can we trust that it’s clean?
If you haven’t been tracking what’s happening with FHIR, this image gives a good look at some of the major FHIR projects and what they’re each focused on. If you’re interested in one of these areas, you should get involved in these FHIR projects.
There’s quite a bit of discussion at the conference about what the future of TEFCA and QHINs look like. Most agree that the next ASTP/ONC Director will really determine that future. Jirjis is right about needing metcalf’s law to improve the value that the networks provide healthcare organizations.
Public Health is becoming a major discussion in most healthcare interoperability discussions. eHealth Exchange has a major focus on public health and is making a real impact in this regard. I’m sure we’ll hear a lot more about this in the years to come.
If you’re not familiar with 42 CFR Part 2, it’s focused on the privacy of substance use information. If you have any substance use information, you should be diving into this regulation.
Such a simple anecdote that can be easy to forget. You could apply the same concept to financial as legal as well. Sometimes you just need to do the right thing for the patient.
This was an important discussion at the conference on stage and with many attendees. The reality is the dispute resolution is an important topic for all networks since it could potentially happen to any of them. Figuring out the right amount of transparency to engender trust in the process is important.
This certainly could be open for some interesting discussion. I don’t think Alan was dismissing that they’re could be and are bad actors at times on the network. I think instead he was saying that if we address the broad definition problem, then it would address many of the bad actors on the networks. Plus, it’s hard to define someone as a bad actor when the definition can be interpreted broadly and in different ways.
I was actually surprised I didn’t hear more conversation about identity management at the conference. Certainly it’s been an important topic in exchange for a while. We’ll see if Matthew Eisenberg is right and 2025 really dives deep into identity management.
Just to be clear, I think this comment about the VA was in the context of their interoperability efforts. I don’t think it was intended more broadly. The example of one of the VA users wishing that the interface was bidirectional when it already was bidirectional is compelling. I’ve seen that happen in EHR software many times. The feature is there, but the user doesn’t know about it. Marketing and communicating what’s available is a real challenge at large organizations in particular.
This wish from Cindy Pan was one of the best answers I’ve heard to what I call the magic wand question. There’s a lot of “teaching to the test” that’s happening rather than being ambitious and going beyond what the standard or regulation requires. We see it a few places, but certainly not enough in healthcare interoperability.
The Prior Auth session at the conference was fascinating. They offered a few illustrations of what’s possible when payers and providers work together. Although, William Gregg was spot on when he talked about the real complexity that exists between payers and providers.
We’ve talked a lot about the importance of quality data here on Healthcare IT Today. It comes up in most interoperability and analytics conversations. However, it was aptly pointed out that there’s a whole lot of nuance and detail when it comes to ensuring quality data, but also leveraging that data to create value. Plus, the encouragement to not wait for perfect data was very appropriate.
This was a really compelling point. One of the speakers talked about how they were so excited that millions of CDAs were being shared. Then, he pointed out how no one actually used the CDAs that were shared. He encouraged everyone in attendance to not just focus on the number of shares, but to ensure that the data being shared is actually being used. I think we’re doing better with this because of so many projects that shared data or aggregated data with no outcomes. However, it’s always good to remember that the end goal is not sharing data. The end goal should be improving care, improving a process, etc.
Hopefully you found these insights from the eHealth Exchange conference helpful. Let us know what you think of what was shared on social media.
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