<aside> đź’ˇ Regional FHIR Workshop (Jan 13 - 15, 2020), ADB HQ Manila Philippines
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The Standards and Interoperability Lab - Asia (SIL-Asia) was established by the Asia eHealth Information Network (www.aehin.org) in 2017 with support from the Asian Development Bank to serve the interoperability needs of countries in the Asia Pacific region.
Specifically, the lab was established to provide technical support to countries in their digital health implementations. The technical support includes capacity development, project collaborations, creation of knowledge materials, and building of communities of practice.
Today, Health Level Seven International - Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (HL7-FHIR) is the emerging standard in health data exchange and sharing. HL7-FHIR uses the power of the web to exchange data across disparate platforms and technologies. Health Information Exchanges, Hospitals Information Systems, and even large tech companies, such as Google and Apple, are using HL7-FHIR in handling health data. Google Healthcare provides Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that can be accessed by EMRs to share data with web applications (and vice versa). One of the standards being used is HL7 FHIR. Apple uses HL7 FHIR to connect the Apple Health App to various EMRs/EHRs and even wearables such as the Apple Watch.
Because of the ease of using it, FHIR has driven the development of more health-related applications, outside of the traditional Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) or Electronic Health Records (EHRs) This includes the development of mobile applications or applications based on wearables. HL7-FHIR leverages the use of APIs to improve access to health data being used by different EMRs. Countries around the world, like the United States, Netherlands, and in Asia (Viet Nam, Philippines) are adopting HL7-FHIR to be the baseline standard of their respective health information exchanges.
The goal of this workshop is to provide an overview of HL7-FHIR to digital health practitioners in the region. Specifically, the workshop aims to show how HL7-FHIR as a standard can be implemented in national digital health programs. This workshop is being organized by the Standards and Interoperability Lab - Asia (SIL-Asia), which has been established by the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a shared resource in the Asia Pacific Region for capacity building on health standards and interoperability. The lab has been established to provide technical assistance to countries as they develop their digital health infrastructure.
In the three-day workshop on HL7-FHIR, plenary sessions will be held by invited speakers. Since it is expected to have participants with different backgrounds and levels of knowledge on HL7-FHIR, parallel workshops will also be conducted to ensure that attendees will be able to participate in areas where they are most interested. Finally, the workshop will culminate through a design thinking session. This session aims to identify key workflows or use cases where HL7-FHIR will provide the most value. Participants will be requested to prepare use cases before the workshop (in discussion with program managers and policymakers in their respective countries) to provide the most value to their health systems.
At the end of this three-day workshop, participants should: