The HL7 Annual Meeting

On Monday, I had the honor of keynoting the HL7 Annual meeting in Cambridge, MA.   I used these slides.

I began with an overview of the Standards work in progress in the HIT Standards Committee and the S&I Framework.   Then, I offered personal comments (not representing the Standards Committee) as to where I believe healthcare Standards need to evolve.

My major point was this - Why did the web grow an exponential pace?  We had transport (HTTP) and content (HTML) that anyone could use without significant training to create and consume information.   Healthcare has always viewed itself as different, requiring more complex standards to address every possible edge case.   What we need is HTTP and HTML that is good enough for healthcare.  

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) using JSON is the simple HTML for healthcare that does not require knowledge of the HL7 RIM

The work of Dixie Baker and the Privacy and Security Workgroup evaluating the combination of REST/Oauth2/OpenID indicates that REST is the HTTP for healthcare.  

Although CCDA and Direct are a reasonable starting point and will exist for many years, FHIR/JSON and REST/OAuth2/OpenID is where we need to be.