The HL7® Fast Heathcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR ®) at Scale Taskforce (FAST) initiative has officially left the nest and taken flight! In 2017, ONC spearheaded the FHIR at Scale Taskforce, a public-private partnership with industry stakeholders, to accelerate the scalability of FHIR across the industry. Since its inception, FAST grew larger and shifted focus from identifying FHIR scalability challenges to proposing new solutions, including new standards development, so it made sense for FAST to find a new home. It did not have to fly far – FAST is now an official HL7® FHIR Accelerator. ONC is pleased to recognize this important milestone!
Transitioning to an HL7 FHIR Accelerator enables the FAST community of developers, implementers, and advocates to take greater ownership of the initiative and begin to turn FAST’s vision of a more dynamic FHIR-enabled ecosystem into a reality…
ONC is excited about the growing adoption of the HL7 FHIR standard and implementation of FHIR-based application programming interfaces (APIs). In a recent Health Affairs blog post, National Coordinator Micky Tripathi articulated ONC’s vision for a healthcare ecosystem characterized by “APIs and apps as core drivers of enhanced access, functionality, and user experience in health care interoperability.” Health IT developers are rolling out standardized FHIR APIs based on new certification criteria established in ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule. And as we look to the future, the groundwork laid by ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule will pave the way for FHIR-based information exchange at national scale under TEFCA. Indeed, many FAST components are directly applicable to the TEFCA “Facilitated FHIR” exchange mode that will be launched in early 2023…
