By The Open Group
The Open Group Healthcare Forum has published its first whitepaper, “Enhancing Health Information Exchange with the FHIM” which examines the Federal Health Information Model (FHIM) and its efforts to bring semantic interoperability to the Healthcare industry.
The document was developed in response to a 2014 request to the Healthcare Forum made by the Federal Health Architecture program (FHA), an E-Government Line of Business initiative managed by ONC. The Forum was asked to evaluate the FHIM and to detail its potential usefulness to the wider Healthcare ecosystem. In response, The Healthcare Forum developed a whitepaper that highlights the strengths of the FHIM and the challenges it faces. Contributors came from organizations based across the globe including HP (US), Dividend Group (Canada), Sykehuspartner (Norway), and Philips Medical Systems (Germany).
The FHIM is a key component of a multimillion dollar effort to enable data sharing across the Healthcare enterprise. It has relevance worldwide as US federal agencies are among the leading markets for healthcare technology and processes. By identifying examples of FHIM adoption, understanding barriers to its adoption, and relating the FHIM to other major efforts to achieve Healthcare interoperability, the white paper reflects The Healthcare Forum’s support of Boundaryless Information Flow™, which continues to be engaged in this important work and expects to publish new insights in the second white paper in this series, planned for late 2015. The full whitepaper can be found here to download.
At the same time The Open Group Healthcare Forum has also announced that The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC – part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) as its latest key member.
FHA Director Gail Kalbfleisch commented on the announcement, “We look forward to this membership opportunity with the Healthcare Forum, and becoming a part of the synergy that comes from collaborating with other members.”
Allen Brown, President & CEO of The Open Group also welcomed the news, “We are delighted to welcome the ONC to The Open Group Healthcare Forum following the evaluation of the FHIM by our members. The efficient and effective flow of secure healthcare information through healthcare systems is a critical goal of all who are engaged in that industry and is core to the vision of The Open Group which is Boundaryless Information Flow™, achieved through global interoperability in a secure, reliable and timely manner“.
