Juhi Tahiliani

Interop hype train has arrived, choo choo. Picking up from a recent thread, a few other things I saw that are exciting: 1. athenahealth's alpha release of event driven APIs This has been a long time coming. athenahealth has always invested into APIs and their developer ecosystem more than the average EHR, but their method of letting apps know about new data was a complex polling situation where developers had to check "changed data" endpoint at five minute intervals. Highly complex, error prone and somewhat wasteful operationally athenahealth is the first major EHR to release a variant of FHIR Subscriptions, although their implementation is "largely based" on that specification. After notification, developers must query the appropriate FHIR or proprietary API for the new content. Events they support are really broad (although certainly not all data types one might want), addressing the creation and updates of: - Appointments - Claims - Encounters - Encounters - Historic medications - Historic vaccines - Imaging results - Lab results - Order - Patient - Patient case - Problem - Prescription - Provider - Referring provider The bar has been set - any guesses when other EHRs will match it? 2. athenahealth and eClinicalWorks both supporting CDS Hooks Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Hooks represent the next wave of UI-integration (vs pure data integration), allowing applications to embed themselves into the workflow in the EHR more seamlessly than a standalone application or even a SMART on FHIR launch. Epic long has been the market leader here and their support is really robust. So it's exciting to see these implementations. After certain events happen in the EHR, the CDS services receive a ping to let them run logic and assess whether the provider user should be shown a prompt, alert, or suggested action (i.e. a proposed referral order, a changed medication, a new condition). It's powerful for things like HCC coding, payer prior authorization guidelines, surfacing potential clinical trials, and much more. The most important part is how they integrate the alerts into the UI to not be disruptive. athena's screenshots show some intelligent choices to that extent. athenahealth's has: - Prefetch for Patient, diagnoses, problems, and vitals (somewhat limited, but Subscriptions makes this less important) - Trigger is just order-select for now, but that's powerful! - Suggestions of procedure or medication orders (no conditions) - Launch of a SMART app in an embedded or new tab - Feedback from the EHR to the app to understand an overridden suggestions eClinicalWorks details are lighter, but: - Some prefetch capability - Triggers for order-select and encounter-select - Some support for suggestions (example is MedicationRequest) - Some support for SMART apps (shown in example JSON as bilirubin app) - Feedback I'm expecting Oracle and MEDITECH to release some support here this year, if only to meet Da Vinci Prior Authorization needs

201

34 Comments

Interoperability creates a more connected, efficient, and patient-friendly healthcare experience. It’s the foundation for better care, improved outcomes, and a smoother journey through the health system. What’s interesting is that when interoperability is working well, most patients don’t even notice; they just experience timely, seamless care that builds confidence in their providers.

13

HCA Healthcare invests $75M in Hyderabad! 💼🏥 HCA Healthcare is setting up a Global Capability Center (GCC) in Hyderabad, aiming to strengthen its support for high-quality patient care in the United States and United Kingdom. The new center will focus on enhancing operational efficiency, technology adoption, and global healthcare services, reflecting the growing role of India as a hub for healthcare innovation. This $75 million investment underscores the importance of Hyderabad as a strategic destination for healthcare excellence and global medical support. #hcahealthcare #hyderabad #globalhealthcare #patientcare #healthcareinvestment #medicalinnovation #healthcareindia #gcc #digitalhealth #hospitalmanagement

2