5 Things a Healthcare CIO Must do Right Now

Healthcare IT is in fierce flux, it's evolving and at lightning speed and losing track isn't something you can afford at this moment unless you want many fingers to be pointed at you for being the culprit of hefty penalties and lost incentives within a couple of years from now. Two years is very little time to straighten things out in a hospital IT environment and yet alone if you are responsible for an Integrated Delivery Network (IDN). Career switching isn't a sound option during these times so you definitely need all the advice you can get!

If you are a Chief Information Officer (CIO) or a Chief Information Technology Officer (CTO) there are a minimum of five things that you must be on top of:

1. Follow "Meaningful Use": "Meaningful Use" criteria will definitely have an impact on your application environment and your technology infrastructure. You will have to comply if you want your organization to receive the incentives and avoid the penalties. Inpatient settings will have viable options with the new criteria that is being defined.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services maintains a website named Health IT and here you will find quick links to both the HIT Standards Committee and the HIT Policy Committee and both are responsible for the definition of "Meaningful Use". On this blog I have also placed a special page named EHR Meaningful Use with all the links you will need to visit from time to time for your convenience. The HIT Committees also publish their agendas and their respective documents regarding their advances at their HHS website.

2. Follow CCHIT: CCHIT is defining several different processes for certification that aligns with "Meaningful Use". The 2 newer ones named EHR-M and EHR-S can apply to one or several of your scenarios. Read the blog I posted titled "Midwest Interoperability Crusade, HL7 CCOW, EMPI, and Single Sign-On (SSO)" on July 1st, 2009, this will give you one of many possible scenarios to ponder on.

3. Follow the Standards and Harmonization Initiatives: Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) and the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel(HITSP) harmonization initiatives will evolve drastically in order to define profiles based on use cases that will be spawned by the "Meaningful Use" definitions. HL7 will most likely become very active since this standard will maintain its stronghold in the interoperability domain. There is no way new standards can emerge in the near future. Standards take time to develop and you can't catch up with a 20+ year endeavor that easily. I don't expect DICOM to change too much and probably if it does it will be aimed towards goals for the year 2015 or beyond.

4. Form a Team to Monitor Events and Trends: Everything that is occurring is almost impossible to be tracked on your own, unless you have the superhuman attributes that Dr. John Halamka, CIO of Harvard Medical School, has. But then, if that is the case you wouldn't be reading this since you don't need any advice. Forming a team where each member is assigned a different activity to monitor is a vital step. One member of the team may monitor "Meaningful Use" events while another one monitors what's going on with CCHIT and yet another may follow HITSP and IHE and the standard developing organizations such as: Health Level Seven (HL7) and the Accredited Standards Committee (ASC X12). How you organize your team is up to you but do make sure that you keep informed of trends that may impact your objectives.

5. Follow the blogs: There are great blogs out there that are constantly being updated with valuable information of what is going on in the Health IT domain.

Dr. John Halamka constantly posts information regarding the policy committees on his blog space named Life as a Healthcare CIO. He is Chairman of HITSP and Co-Chair of the Healthcare Standards Committee. You can't get any closer to the inside scoop! The Health Care Blog (THCB) is also a very popular and a highly commented space. Here you can find health care thought leaders, such as Dr. David Kibbe, posting their blogs, comments, and also interacting with other commentators. Dr. David Kibbe has his own blog named Kibbe and Klepper on Health Care that he shares with Dr. Brian Klepper another healthcare IT thought leader. Brian Ahier is a healthcare IT blogger and also a twitterer that is really on top of things and his space can be found here: Brian Ahier - Healthcare IT. If you don't have time to go to all of them then you should visit this last one. And don't forget to come back to my humble blog where you received all this free advice!

Thanks for reading!

The EHR Guy

Coming soon: 5 More Things a Healthcare CIO Must do ASAP

Midwest Interoperability Crusade, HL7 CCOW, EMPI, and Single Sign-On (SSO)

It's been a great week! I also have to admit that I am happy that it's coming to an end by tomorrow. Yes, I said tomorrow since I'm heading back to Arizona to celebrate the 4th of July with my family and friends. But I still have pending 2 more stops: one more in Detroit and another one in Ann Harbor, Michigan.

I never thought I could visit so many cities in such a short period of time. The good thing about the Midwest is that all the cities are relatively close to each other.

In this trip my favorite visit has been to the Wind City, Chicago, Illinois. During the past RSNA, the Connectathon, and HIMSS09 I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I wished, mainly because of how wicked cold it was during the first 2 events and then for the latter I was too busy. By the way, in Maine wicked means extremely good but I am using the opposite definition of it!

I've been exhilarated by the enthusiasm I find among everyone with the new challenges that face us. It's been mainly lengthy meetings where people keep asking me what "Meaningful Use" is about, how we can plan for the new CCHIT certification processes, and what should be the most immediate actions to take that guarantee that they will be going in the right track. I am also amazed about how mislead some are with all the information that is going on out there. I have to admit that even keeping close track of it can be overwhelming at times.

The CCHIT certification has become a concern for many hospitals that have best of breed environments mixed in with some in-house development and some wonder if they are going to have to change everything in such a short notice. They were very relieved when I explained how CCHIT has come up with 3 different certification models and that the 2 newly introduced ones would resolve their concerns and frustrations.

The EHR-M is the certification process that the vendors of the different BoB (Best of Breed) applications they have installed should request directly to CCHIT. This certification process is aimed specifically for modules (e.g. Laboratory applications, ePrescribing, Computer Provider Order Entry or CPOE, Patient Charts, etc.) Most hospitals that I have been to have applications from various vendors (e.g. Cerner, AllScripts, MEDITECH, etc.) and they are going to have to get their functionality harmonized in a way that in unison they act as an Electronic Health Record (EHR).

The EHR-S is the certification of a sites' functionality. This is entirely in the hands of the facilities. They have to demonstrate that there home-brewed solutions integrate and perform as an Electronic Health Record. Most will most likely have to play together with BoB modules.

Something that I have noticed is that this combination of certification processes will trigger the interest in HL7 CCOW and Single Sign-On. Reasoning: You can virtually present to the clinician an Electronic Health Record on the point of care delivery workstations by binding together the disparate applications that reside on them. If you have ever been involved with a Clinical Context Management implementation you have certainly witnessed some magic.

Single Sign-On comes to the aid in helping CCOW manage the User subject (this is how the standard names the user of the applications). Most applications, having been implemented by different vendors and at different times, enforce their own credential management practices. This resulted in clinicians having to carry a piece of paper with many user names and passwords on them. Huge security breach isn't it?

Enterprise Master Patient Index, or EMPI, technology implementations will also be on the rise. This technology addresses a resolution to a huge problem many IDNs and standalone facilities face. Many have been deploying applications throughout the years, each module having been implemented in different times and with different technology paradigms, and mainly when these paradigms were in the period of rapid growth and evolution. This caused many facilities to create patient identifiers that conformed to the uniqueness of each application. Now that information is breaking out of the silos they have lived in for a long period of time they have to be able to unravel this mess. The EMPI helps match the differing patient identifiers from the various applications into a universal or unique identifier.

Thanks for reading!

The EHR Guy

Five Attributes of a Successful Healthcare Solutions Architect

Five Attributes of a Successful Healthcare Solutions Architect

During HIMSS 2009, and lately as well, I have been asked by several people what qualities or attributes would help a healthcare solutions architect be successful, so I decided to initially list at least five key attributes that I consider extremely valuable:

1. Be technology agnostic:

The Healthcare IT scenario is plagued with a myriad of solutions of disparate technologies and they will continue in the landscape for many years to come. Healthcare interoperability is a huge concern and anything you design has to be able to integrate with whatever is out there. You can't be picky by going down the path you feel comfortable with.

In a hospital facility you may find current and legacy applications such as: MEDITECH, Emageon, Lawson, etc., and all of these are based on different technologies (e.g. Magic or MUMPS, Java, RPG 4).

If you are in an Integrated Delivery Network (IDN) scenario you may find that many facilities have differing technologies. One might be a MEDITECH shop while another one may be a SIEMENS one. The reason for this is that many IDNs merge new hospitals into their network and they can't swap their Health Information Systems (HIS) applications overnight. Some migrations can take several years from start to finish. Some never take place because the clinicians of the newly incorporated facility actually like, or are accustomed to, their applications or they fear the unknowns of a new information system. Most likely implementing their HIS was a painful and long process and they may not want to go through that again.

What you design will have to live inside this Tower of Babel so you may find yourself creating pieces consisting of various technologies (e.g. Java, .NET, native C++, etc.). Your products will most likely have to exchange information with legacy applications and silos are no longer welcome in the healthcare domain so be ready to create loosely coupled interfaces to the outside world.

2. Know the standards:

HL7 and DICOM have been around for over 20 years and don't think they will go away anytime soon to give room to the new industry wide standards. In many of your creations you will encounter these standards in one way or another. Don't start complaining just because you don't understand them or they seem different than more generalized standards out there. HL7 has been out in the playing field longer than XML and DICOM has been kicking the ball around before the Object Management Group (OMG) came into being. Both HL7 and DICOM have been adopted by major players in the healthcare IT domain worldwide.

HL7 goes beyond messaging. HL7 has defined other useful standards such as CCOW (Context Management) and the CDA (Clinical Document Architecture). All of these standards will gain momentum during this healthcare modernization era.

3. Know the harmonization initiatives:

IHE and HITSP are organizations that have been formed to be able to sort out the mess mainly created by the excessive flexibility of HL7. DICOM is a more rigid standard although it is also afflicted by the different interpretations given to it by the various vendors that implement it albeit in the last several years this has been largely normalized.

IHE and HITSP are all about interoperability. Both create profiles for implementation that are based on real world use cases.

Personally I recommend that if you are new to healthcare IT and software development you should start learning the standards through these harmonization processes. Learning HL7 from ground zero can be tortuous and understanding DICOM is a career all by itself.

ELINCS is another harmonization process, albeit of smaller scope, that was created by the California Healthcare Foundation to unravel the complexities of the exchange of information between Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Laboratories. If you are going to deal with EHRs and laboratory interoperability then here you will find peace of mind. ELINCS has been adopted by HL7, IHE, and HITSP so it is not a standalone effort as many believe.

4. Understand the CCHIT process:

Certification has become a big deal. You will not survive if you don't deliver products that meet the "Meaningful Use" criteria or that when they play in a healthcare setting they at least contribute to this criteria. CCHIT is defining 3 different certification processes and your product will most likely fall into one of those. Modules have been accounted for for the certification and even in-house developments have been considered. This change in CCHIT's processes is indeed welcome by many of us.

CCHIT has held its position of owning the EHR certification process. There are no indications that other organizations will perform this role. Anyways, if new organizations participate they will most likely follow the same approach CCHIT has created.

5. Get the hang on clinical workflow:

If you want the product you are creating to survive the battle of implementing it in a given clinical setting then you must understand clinical workflow in the various use cases that exist out there. Most applications fail during implementation because they are obtrusive, invasive, and detrimental to the workflow.

This is one of the main reasons that EHRs get launched and then after a short period of time they get tossed out the door, and by the way, not through the front one it came in.

Lack of understanding of the clinician's workflow by many software developing companies has been a major factor of having generated the apathy that exists in clinicians towards information technology.

Almost all softwarel UI paradigms have been designed to be used by people who sit in front of a computer all day long with a keyboard and a mouse pretending to be working at all moments. These input devices are unsuitable for someone who is treating patients in real time. Get the difference? Would you like the doctor or nurse to be sitting in front of a computer while they have an encounter with you? I know I wouldn't!

Biometrics has come a long way and so has artificial intelligence. Investigate how these can aid in creating solutions that augment the workflow. You must start thinking out of the box. Don't think in technology terms but think in solutions to real problems. You would be surprised of how many complex problems have been solved by thinking simpler.

If you want your product to reach the whopping 80% of the unattended healthcare delivery market that's out there waiting for you with their arms closed, and the remaining 20% of the highly unsatisfied current user base then you have to cause a paradigm switch: Think workflow and make the shift!

Coming soon: 5 More Attributes of a Succesful Healthcare Solutions Architect

Thanks for reading!

The EHR Guy

Universal Health Record Healthcare Integration Platform

Context Sensitive News on the HIT Blog

Context Sensitive News on the HIT Blog

Hi,

I've added context sensitive news throughout this blog site.

Whether you want to keep track of the ARRA HITECH Act, or what Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Intel, and others are doing in healthcare IT, or the role of open source, then you must visit this blog site often.

I made a promise to keep everyone informed and up to date. This is a free service to the Healthcare IT community.

Your comments are very important so that I can keep the blog site on the right track.

The feedback has been great. People have sent me emails letting me know that they like it.

The EHR Guy

Global Healthcare IT Stimulus - Imperfect Action is Better than Perfect Inaction

Global Healthcare IT Stimulus - Imperfect Action is Better than Perfect Inaction

Last week before travelling to Chicago, Illinois to attend the HIMSS 2009 Conference I reached out to the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and a former supervisor, of a company that I previously worked for to meet, catch up, and to share some industry visions and ideas. His response to my invitation was that he was on a business trip in China and that this was one of the few times he would not attend the yearly conference. The company where he performs as a CTO did indeed attend and exhibited their new products and solutions. Anyways, his answer came to no surprise to me because I was aware that they were investing money and efforts in China since many months ago.

I have always admired the CTO of this company. He had arrived to the US from China many years ago with a few quarters in his pocket and he has had outstanding success. I try to compare my achievements to his, but I arrived to this country with 10 dollars and 2 teenagers 4 years ago. I started with much more capital so I guess he wins in terms of least investment, risk, and sacrifice. What I admire most of him is his vision.

Microsoft has also set up camp in Beijing specifically dedicated to the Microsoft Amalga line of products in the Asian market. They already have a slew of early adopters using their software; please visit http://www.microsoft.com/amalga/customers/bysegment.mspx for more information. Most of them, if not all, are using the Microsoft Amalga HIS (Health Information System). In the US most early adopters are using the Amalga UIS (Unified Intelligence System). Microsoft is a visionary organization.

All of these facts indicate that there is "something" going on in the Asian part of the world in healthcare information technology. This "something" is very attractive to companies in the healthcare technology domain in the US. This "something" is $120 billion dollars that are being invested in healthcare in China. This is quite some stimulus to crank the gears of the world economy. A lot of that money will also end up in healthcare IT and albeit China has a large supply of technologically prepared individuals it will require much more to meet demand. The US and China have been working constantly and diligently on many software projects for many years now so I can assume that this trend will continue and grow.

Meanwhile, here in the US, our industry leaders (e.g. healthcare software moguls, hospitals, IDNs (Integrated Delivery Networks), etc.), have been laying off people, cutting back on expenses, and slowing and trimming down, due to an uncertain economic future. These leaders are doing just that, creating the uncertain future. When President Obama mentioned the stimulus package it was time to stand up, shake the dust off, and get back to work. But no, these leaders have decided to wait until the terms are clearer and they are certain where the money is going to be spent.

Well, from what I understand and what I have always listened to from other industry experts, is that IT resources belong to a global pool. Locally, we have a scarcity of them for our own needs, even with this perceived crisis it's still difficult to find Healthcare IT Consultants. Healthcare IT Consultants are considered commodities. Since over a decade we have had to contract and/or hire developers and software engineers from India, China, and Eastern Europe to fulfill demand.

Now with these two simultaneous geographically polarized stimulus incentives for healthcare we will discover that China, which is triggering a high demand for IT skills just as they have for oil in the past, will become a competitor for these resources. We don't have enough and now we have an emerging strong competitor. I don't know what you think but for me it poses a dilemma.

By the time our industry leaders wake up from their "economic nightmare" many entrepreneurs, small and medium businesses, and even large software companies will have shifted their focus to the new rising sun. And they currently are as I mentioned before.

The Healthcare Industry in the US will end up picking up the tab. They will end up paying more and getting less. Once again, our spark of modernizing our healthcare system will go off. We will not have a universal electronic health record, we will not have automated the private physician practices, and we will not have a connected healthcare. And all of our stimulus incentive will have been totally spent.

So, if you are one of those leaders without vision and are just waiting for the right time and all the right conditions, then please step down and let someone else take the lead. There are many of us out there, including some who have arrived to this generous country with almost nothing but a few coins and suitcases, and which have already surpassed the American Dream for which we are very grateful, and that are ready to give, serve, and lead.

This is your wakeup call.

Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction.

The EHR Guy

What is HL7 programming? (Part 1 of 3)

What is HL7 programming? (Part 1 of 3)

Hi,

I know what the HIT gurus are thinking about this topic's title. But really, I do have to listen to this question quite frequently.

Not only do I receive this inquiry from the folks that are trying to get involved in healthcare IT for the first time, but for many years I have also heard of it from recruiters and head hunters, "Are you an HL7 programmer too?", is typical in their screenings. Of course, hesitantly I answer "yes!", or risk losing the opportunity to further discuss what might end up being a lucrative contract or a nice career job.

"HL7 programming" is a misnomer. HL7 is not a programming languange, like C# or Java are. HL7 in itself is not a standard either. HL7 is a standard developing organization (SDO).

HL7, the organization, has published several standards, among them:

• HL7 Version 2.x series (currently they list only versions 2.3 through 2.6),
• HL7 Version 3.0,
• Clinical Context Management (CCOW),
• Arden Syntax,
• Clinical Document Architecture (CDA),

HL7 Version 2.x series are the most popular of their standards. They have been adopted by an overwhelming number of healthcare delivery organizations in such a way that some reputable studies estimate the adoption rate in the US is over 90%. HL7 Version 2.x series are often referred to collectively as an interface messaging standard since they do consist of a specification formed by a myriad of well-structured and well-organized field delimited messages. The messages are defined by abstract templates which aid in their implementation. This messaging standard which was first released in 1987 under version 1.0 has evolved significantly but it initiated much before other popular industry formats such as, XML, ever existed, or were widely known as they are today. The latest release from the version 2.x series was HL7 Version 2.6 which was approved as an ANSI standard October, 2007.

HL7 Version 3.0 is based on the HL7 Reference Information Model (HL7 RIM) which is much more complex and it is also based on XML. It uses the RIM and an object-oriented methodology to create messages.

This version has had a difficult time being adopted in the United States. Europe, having a smaller Healthcare IT infrastructure than the US, has been able to adapt to it with much more ease. In my opinion it was a smart decision not to move forward with Version 3.0 since it was defined much before the XML standard evolved and there are many "lessons learned". We also have mature "use cases" and "best practices" acquired from other industries and that we weren't quite aware of years before. Version 3.0 should undergoe scrutiny and reinvented, maybe by creating Version 4.0, which should be simpler so that it can be easily adopted and implemented. Until this happens I doubt that it will gain significant momentum.

I have architected, developed, and encountered many implementations of HL7 Version 3.0. Somehow they remind me of the early days of DICOM implementations in which each vendor had a very different interpretation of the DICOM standard. Some of these DICOM implementations continue to be a cause of difficulties when integrating equipment from different vendors. Many healthcare delivery organizations decided to go in the direction of "Single Vendor" solutions due to the complexity involved in integrating heterogeneous environments.

To be continued (Part 1 of 3) ...

The EHR Guy

HIMSS09 ...

HIMSS09 ...

Hi,

HIMSS09 is a little over a week away. Held at the same ol' location where RSNA has been held for many years, the McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois starting Sunday, April 4th and ending Wednesday, April 8th.

I hope it isn't as cold in Chicago as it was when I travelled there to attend the RSNA event last year. Anyways, Chicago is a nice city and I enjoyed the whole event. I stayed at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile which is nearby everything. I even had dinner at President Obama's favorite italian restaurant and I won't say which it is since I'll leave that to your own discovery.

This year will be slightly different than others since two major vendors: MEDITECH and Cerner, have both cancelled their attendance. This is unfortunate because MEDITECH is a cornerstone of healthcare IS and albeit they are a very conservative company they do tend to continuosly bring innovations and improve their product line. Cerner having been a major industry player for many years will also be missed. I am unaware of other cancellations but from what I have gathered from other colleagues, most companies, at least the ones they work for, are sending the minimum amount of people as they can.

But there will definitely be other big companies showing off their new products, technologies, ongoing projects, and ideas. Microsoft is one of them. Microsoft is really gaining momentum with their 2 primary healthcare focuses: Microsoft Amalga and Microsoft HealthVault. I am more interested in their UIS (Unified Intelligence System) at this moment since I believe it will revolutionize how healthcare information systems will be developed in the future. The UIS, although I don't know too much about it, I understand that it is a platform. A platform says many things and I'll wait for details that I'll gather when I'm at their booth. I'll flip my tag so that they can't recognize me and I'll carry my stethoscope around my neck (by the way I'm not a physician!) that way they'll spill it all out. Since I used to be a sales engineer I know how to treat that breed. You can find more information about Microsoft's HIMSS 2009 Conference at the following site: http://www.mshimss2009.com/. Microsoft has been exceptionally good to me so I will give them free advertisement. :)

Google, although not being as lavish as its rival, may have some surprises as well. They have only mentioned their free consumer-oriented personal health record (PHR).

I am sure there will be a lot of enthusiasm among attendees since healthcare IT is one of the hottest topics in the current political agenda. We'll see a lot of folks promoting themselves as the solution to the healthcare interoperability challenge.

On Tuesday I will be attending the roundtable discussion tentatively titled, "Meet the Bloggers". I was invited by HIMSS so I guess my blog site is achieving its intended effect. This round table is taking place as part of a new exhibit called "HIMSS Tech Lab", accordingly. Other bloggers are invited as well according to their invitation and I'm just spreading the word.

I hope to see you in Chicago!

The EHR Guy

Are We That Different?

Are We That Different?

Hi,

Lately I've been receiving many inquiries from folks from other IS / IT domains (e.g. financial, insurance, retail, etc.) that want to jump into the healthcare IS/IT bonanza that is about to commence. One thing that amazes me is all the misconceptions many have of our domain.

In some ways this dissapoints me, since I have been loyal to this domain for over 20 years, and despite how "greener the grass" may have appeared to be on other sides of the fence, I along with others have remained firm.

On the other hand, we do need all the help we can get since there is a lot of work that has to be done. So we, the strange healthcare IT breed, will have to welcome this massive influx of newbies.

But first lets get a couple of things straight: First, healthcare IS / IT folks DO KNOW about modern technologies, we are not limited to MUMPS programming and AS/400s. SOA, ESB, Web Services, REST, SOAP, SSO, etc. are part of our repertoire.

We are also starting to use titles such as: solutions architect, enterprise architect, etc. And yes, we also understand what Business Intelligence and XML are all about.

Second, we don't have different standards because of our supposedly capricious nature. In the healthcare domain, due to an imperative necessity we began developing integration standards long before other industries attempted it.

Initially, back in 1983, we created DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine), a standard for the distribution and sharing of images between a myriad of medical devices and IT equipment in hospitals and other healthcare delivery organizations. DICOM for many years was way ahead of its time. Major multinational companies were developing products with this standard, among them: Agfa, GE, HP, Philips, SIEMENS, TOSHIBA, etc.

Then, further down the timeline, in 1987, we founded HL7. One of HL7's missions was to create a messaging standard. This messaging standard would allow a myriad of legacy applications to be able to communicate with each other using a common protocol. It took many years, 21 so far, for this standard to be almost totally adopted by the industry. Currently, HL7 has been adopted by approximately 95% of the hospitals in the United States alone. You can see that HL7 existed long before XML was ever even thought about. Nevertheless, HL7 began working with XML technology since the formation of the SGML/XML Special Interest Group since 1996. Therefore we have 12 years of experience with XML.

In our domain there is a big difference in that we have to deal with many legacy applications that are dissimilar to those of other domains. Similar to the financial industry having to deal with legacy COBOL applications, we have had to maintain, support, and integrate many legacy applications, in COBOL as well as in many other supposedly "dead" languages.

The information we have to manage and integrate is also very different. It is also tenfold * tenfold more complex. While other domains only have to deal with credits and debits and a little demographic data, we have to deal with those as well, and additionally with laboratory test results, medical images, voice transcriptions (both textual and audible), documents as images, pathology data, pharmacological information, etc. Some of my readers will find this list short, so please pardon my omissions. A digital health record comprehends all the aforementioned types.

So before asking us why don't we use XML, solve an integration problem with a web service, or use standard industry business intelligence tools please delve a little further into the "nature of the beast" that we are dealing with. We aren't that different, but the "beast" is.

The EHR Guy

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IHE North America Connectathon 2009

IHE North America Connectathon 2009

Hi,

The IHE Connectathon held at Chicago every year is right around the corner, only 14 days are left until the event. It starts on Monday, February 23rd, and it culminates on Friday, February 27th, 2009.

It is being held at the Chicago Hyatt Regency located on 151 East Wacker Drive. This is an excellent location, it is close to the most interesting places in Chicago.

This is a true healthcare interoperability testing event between a myriad of medical applications and devices; an interoperability geeks nirvana.

IHE has done an incredible job at creating integration profiles that harness the common usage and best practices in the industry.

At the Connectathon you will witness the merge between HL7 and DICOM, IS and Radiology.

It's also a great opportunity to network. I look forward to meeting you there!

The Healthcare Interoperability Blog is Coming Soon!

The Healthcare Interoperability Blog is Coming Soon!

Hi,

I will be adding blog entries related to Healthcare Interoperability standards, technologies, solutions, constraints, issues, current aspects, and future trends, from time to time.

Many of the topics will be around healthcare standards such as: HL7, DICOM, and the IHE initiative; another important topic will be the adoption of new technologies and trends in software and IT from other domains.

Also to be covered are topics related to the development of the Universal Health Record (UHR), sometimes equivocally referred to as: Personal Health Record (PHR), Electronic Health Record (EHR), Electronic Medical Record (EMR), or Digital Health Record (DHR); this last one is President Obama's way of naming it. I will define, as close as I can to the truth, all the aforementioned terms as well.

Other blogs will be from a healthcare domain culture, business and/or political perspective.

Please stay tuned and come back!

The EHR Guy