Following the recent interopsummit there was an announcement at the end of the panel debate that leaders of interoperability networks (C4H, HL7UK, techUK, PRSB, BCS, CCIO/CIO network, IHE, OpenEHR, NHS Digital, NHS England) have agreed to work to establish how they can come together under an umbrella group called INTEROPen, whilst keeping the INTEROPen T+C/values/purpose/aims. The governance of this is actively being discussed now on INTEROPen’s discussion platform.
Many here will not be aware of the work of INTEROPen and I am keen to improve the communication and knowledge around this - hence this new open forum topic.
Essentially, INTEROPen is an initiative, or action group, created in February 2016 to help take forward the great work of the Newcastle Declaration and techUK interoperability charter (@paul.cooper) to an implementable NHS open standard for the exchange of data using initially HL7 FHIR.
The video link explores HL7 FHIR - essentially many vendors are behind using this standard as it helps more easily move granular clinical data between systems e.g. medication, problem, allergy. INTEROPen, through the work of a set of vendors in collaboration with NHSDigital has produced a draft set of FHIR standards for clinical data and these are named CareConnect (as they can “connect between all care settings”). The plan is to work closely with NHS digital on developing these and respective APIs; derivatives of these developing CareConnect FHIR profiles have been given to the GP suppliers to enable structured data to be accessed from GP system as part of the GPConnect programme.
The key clinical focus of INTEROPen’s first FHIR project, namely the CareConnect FHIR standards (or profiles), is our use case Michael’s Story, which was enhanced in the interopsummit medication reconciliation use
INTEROPen continues to grow with organisations (vendors, providers, standards + clinical groups and individuals) joining weekly as they believe in the T+Cs and many wish to see a set of national open standards created and implemented.
The INTEROPen twitter is @interopenapi. I do need to update the current membership list but here is one posted recently.
Since then LDR/STP/CCG type regions have joined including, GNCR (Dr Joe McDonald), Connecting Care Partnership (Andy Kinnear/Jocelyn Palmer), Birmingham & Solihull LDR (Dr Masood Nazir, Ciaron Hoye), Tower hamlet/Newham/City Hackney/Waltham Forest CCG (Luke Readman, C4H Chair, and Dr Charles Gutteridge).
I hope this Topic stream is helpful to update the openhealthhub community on the INTEROPen work. Via @marcus_baw this community’s vision aligns to INTEROPen and you are members. Should individuals wish to join to our discussion platform RYVER, I would request they also try to ask their respective organisations to join via membership@interopen.org.
Please do ask any questions here too and I will do my best to answer them 