With almost 20% of our nation’s GDP tied to health care, an often complex and convoluted sector, it is an exciting time, ripe with opportunities to disrupt the status quo and create tech-enabled efficiencies for large scale profit. However, it is crucial to understand that positive disruption in the health sector must combine the realization of improved patient outcomes and cost savings. This cannot happen without data interoperability…and data interoperability is impossible without standardization.
It seems like an oxymoron for standardization to be essential for disruption, but the drive to standardize health tech data to achieve interoperability is steadily gaining momentum. CMS has put their shoulders behind FHIR® based application programming interfaces, a data standard developed and maintained by the standards development organization HL7.
Why FHIR? Because adoption determines the success of any standard. Multiple health stakeholders have committed to adopt FHIR, such as major EHR vendors, tech developers, and hospital systems. To use or be compatible with FHIR, this standard will likely become the health sector’s default. Building your tech using FHIR profiles is now a no-brainer.
Already, 87% of hospitals and 57% of Merit-based Incentive Payment System-eligible clinicians are served by tech products certified to FHIR Release 2. Incorporating the requirements from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) for FHIR interoperability standards into tech platforms is a must for developers looking to effectively and profitably disrupt health delivery.
