{"id":1385,"date":"2019-10-10T13:04:43","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T12:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ec-projects.co.uk\/intersystems-uki\/?p=1385"},"modified":"2019-10-25T10:27:16","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T09:27:16","slug":"juhc19-nhs-on-fhir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ec-projects.co.uk\/intersystems-uki\/juhc19-nhs-on-fhir\/","title":{"rendered":"JUHC19: NHS on FHIR"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the fourth session of the InterSystems Joined-up Health & Care event in Birmingham and it was time to warm things up. It was time to talk about FHIR<\/a>. Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources. The standards that are being developed by the HL7 Organisation to drive healthcare IT system interoperability.<\/p>\n

Taking to the stage at The Vox in Birmingham were three hot speakers – David Hancock, healthcare executive advisor, InterSystems, Ian Townend, lead architect, NHSX, Steve Mallam, HealthShare team lead, InterSystems – with Tom Keppeler, director of communications at InterSystems asking the burning questions.<\/p>\n

\"JUCH<\/a><\/p>\n

Starting with the basics<\/h2>\n

Tom opened with an easy starter for ten: what is FHIR? <\/strong><\/p>\n

David<\/strong>: \u201cIt is the new standard from HL7 that takes the best of previous standards and tries to build on them. It separates information from its presentation and makes it possible to do lots of things with it. It also supports something called REST APIs, which will enable us to bring healthcare into the internet age. It will also enable us to bring more developer talent into healthcare, because all the young data scientists out there are familiar with REST.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> But why is it important to the NHS? Ian:<\/strong> \u201cAs David said, getting information out of NHS\u00a0 systems is hard, but FHIR makes it much easier.\u201d Tom:<\/strong> And what are the priorities for its lead out? Ian:<\/strong> \u201cAll new messaging from now on should be FHIR. So we are seeing some of the GP data move to FHIR, and things like the national event management service are using FHIR. The local health and care record exemplars are wanting to convert systems to FHIR. And we are starting to see local organisations wanting to pick this up and run with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve: <\/strong>\u201cA good example is the event management system that we are building, which takes the messages that are generated about young children up to the age of five, and puts them into an electronic version of the Redbook that all parents will be familiar with because they have to carry it around. They can get information from GP Connect and see patient information from the GP in the ambulance on a tablet. That is going live this week. We are also looking at taking GP Connect data and sending that into East Midlands Ambulance Service ambulances, so the crew can see GP data as they are on their way into hospital and help to inform treatment decisions. That is going live this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playing into the national agenda<\/h2>\n

There is a big picture on FHIR, though. As David <\/strong>pointed out: \u201cThis plays to the national agenda that Matthew Gould [the chief executive of NHSX] has spoken about, which is moving away from applications, and moving towards platforms and services and APIs. That\u2019s because we need to be able to unlock data and let it flow securely around the system and it is only using FHIR we can do that. That is why it is fundamental.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> How do we bring the industry together on this? Ian:<\/strong> \u201cThere is a website, and a library, and a big network, but one of the big things we want to develop is a library of specs for projects. So we have the specifications, but if you think about something like the ambulance project that we have talked about, people might wonder where to start with that, so we want to put together some material so they don\u2019t have to do it all from scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n

David:<\/strong> \u201cOther things that we are thinking about at INTEROPen is implementation guides. Because it is fine saying there are profiles and resources, but it is not always easy to use them. So we want to make sure developers understand how they should be used. We recognise that is something for us to work on and to take through a process of continuous refinement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Lots of great resources to support developers who want to use #FHIR<\/a> says @iantownend<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 INTEROPen (https:\/\/t.co\/p77PHfzdgW<\/a>)
\u2022 NHS app library (https:\/\/t.co\/H1YuKq5cMZ<\/a>)
\u2022 Github (https:\/\/t.co\/DEJWMAZpOc<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Lots more support is being built by @NHSX<\/a> – watch this space! #JUHC19<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/PkVvqGY1p3<\/a><\/p>\n

— InterSystems UK (@InterSystemsUK) October 10, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n