HIMSS 2017 Patient Choice

HIMSS 2017 Orlando Top Story

FHA’s Patient Choice Demonstrations at HIMSS 2017 captures attention. With a storyline based on ONC Patient Choice pilots, teams from the Veteran Health Administration (VHA or VA), Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services (MiHIN) and the [file:///C:\Users\Kathleen%20Connor\Documents\~PROJECTS\ONC\~Patient%20Choice\Patient%20Choice%20Pilots\Patient%20Choice%20HIMSS%202017\samhsa.gov\ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration] (SAMHSA) successfully demonstrated emerging technology and standards applied to meaningful patient choice for the use and disclosure of their own health information.  Sponsors included the HHS National Privacy Office, Health Level 7 with support from the USPS, and Patient Privacy Rights.   In the demonstration, Alice, a fictional disabled veteran, enables her treatment and research providers to apply and comply with laws for specially protected information such as 42 CFR Part 2 and Title 38 Section 7332. MiHIN mediates coordination of Alice’s community based behavioral health through the VA Choice Program with her VA providers, facilitated by SAMHSA’s Consent2Share consent directive platform.  MiHIN uses HL7 Security Label “Privacy Tags” with an innovative internal rules engine approach to enforce Alice’s consents.  Next, Alice’s participation in the Veterans4Research Program[1] is facilitated by a FHIR Research Informed Consent. VA uses a newly proposed Patient/Provider Centered Consent approach to authorization to enable Alice’s enforcement of her VA privacy preferences using her own HL7 FHIR and OAuth 2.0 equipped Authorization server. To assure that Alice’s providers have confidence in the trustworthiness of her research data, FHIR Provenance is used to track its lifecycle.   The FHA Interoperability Showcase reported record traffic this year through the FH A vignette and other FHR stations. [HIMSS had 42,000 attendees at the showcase this year.  Of those 7,500 visited the Interoperability showcase.  That is a 4,000 person increase from last year’s numbers for interop showcase visitors.] Many reported to have been directed to these demonstrations. 

The vignettes ran seamlessly and seemed to catch the viewers’ imagination.  The discussions led to multiple deeper dives among interested parties while those who just wanted to get an overview were satisfied with the high level walk-throughs.

Components of this demonstration are in production or being piloted by the participating organizations, and their architects and developers, as well as those involved with development of these standards, were be on hand to answer audience questions. Participating teams were already brain-storming on HIMSS v-next based on the ONC Patient Research Choice Technical Project. 

[1] Modeled after but not affiliated with the Veteran Administration’s Million Veteran Program.