HL7, #FHIR, and Covid-19
Mar 20, 2020A few people have asked me what HL7 is doing about the Covid-19 pandemic.
The short answer is: not much right now.
Every health system in the world right now is in emergency mode (or will be very shortly). There’s every reason not to lay down new infrastructure - and what HL7 does is help build the build infrastructure that supports the healthcare system. So most of HL7s volunteers are off, urgently making use of their existing infrastructure, or building new solutions in zero time using the standards we’ve already developed - we’ve been building the infrastructure a long time.
Actually, there’s quite a few of those being pressed into service in new ways of doing things:
- FHIR (of course, lots of new ways of doing things emerging)
- CDS Hooks (survelliance, helping clinicians keep up with super fast changing information)
- eCR - Electronic Case Reporting - this pandemic is exactly what this is for
- v2 / CCDA - background health data exchange - more critical than ever
- Quality Reporting - as more robust statistics is build, this will be part of it
We - the people working on standards - wish that the standards had got more penetration into the system than they have. We could be solving the problems we now face quicker and more effectively. But we’ll do the best with what we’ve got.
I’ve asked HL7 members to comment on the things they’re doing below (but honestly, they probably won’t have time - I’m getting this blog post out in a hurry between builds).
Phase 2
Once we survive phase 1 - the first wave of infections (and we will survive, though it’s not clear what shape we’ll be in), then the next phase will begin: building the system we need now as quickly as we can. Some of the ones we need are anticipated in this deeply insightful but also scary post.
And that will require a lot of new standards. HL7, and it’s partners around the world (e.g. IHE) - we’ll be ready to step up and take our part when that time comes.
In the mean time everyone: Give it everything