Interoperability (205)

Bob Watson, Health Gorilla CEO, says that proving interoperability's financial benefits may encourage health systems to connect to TEFCA networks.

Innovaccer CEO Abhinav Shashank says the company's agentic AI cloud enables health systems to consolidate administrative workloads on a common infrastructure rather than purchase individual tools for each process.

By 2027, health systems must meet CMS regulations for issues including prior authorization and data access. eHealth Exchange's FHIR consultant Scott Rossignol says that complications including EHR readiness are delaying progress.

Jonathan French, HIMSS' senior director of public policy, urges HIMSS members interested in public policy advocacy to join committees or workgroups related to their topic of interest.

Fragmented systems hinder care in tribal regions, and Brenda Hood, client experience analyst at HealtHIE Nevada, says that seamless data exchange is essential to closing care gaps and improving access to treatment.

Josh Wilda, University of Iowa Health Care's AVP for information systems and CIDO, says that healthcare organizations can maximize TEFCA access to streamline and improve data exchange costs.

Founder Changemaker awardee Helen Hill, SEMHIE VP/CIO and founder of the HIMSS Michigan chapter, helped launch MiHIN (the Michigan health information exchange), chairs its interoperability task force and runs a small sub-HIE in the MiHIN system.

Cambridge Health Alliance's Dr. Hannah Galvin, Health Equity Changemaker Award recipient, talks about her work in advancing standards that would allow patients to selectively share health data to protect sensitive information.

Dr. Jonathan Nebeker, CMIO at the Department of Veterans Affairs, says the VA seeks to engage with health systems, vendors and others to develop interoperability solutions that can connect veterans to community-based benefits.

All publicly funded Italian hospitals have adopted HIMSS' EMRAM and INFRAM models to assess their digital maturity and demonstrate the benefits of digitization, says Elena Sini, HIMSS board chair and group CIO at Italy's GVM Care and Research.

HIMSS26 attendees share their learnings about AI, interoperability and other hot healthcare topics at the conference.

Amy Gleason of U.S. DOGE Service and CMS says the CMS Health Technology Ecosystem will provide a single patient access point powered by modern identity systems. This will replace portal logins and enable seamless data sharing.