Fourth public meeting of the Interop Council: First working group presented results
22.08.2022 09:57
On Thursday, August 18, 2022, the Interop Council met publicly for the fourth time in Berlin as part of a hybrid event. Around 40 guests took part in the meeting directly on site, while almost 100 people followed the live stream and were able to submit their questions there. In terms of content, the program included the work status of the two working groups on “Mapping IOP initiatives with a focus on FHIR & terminologies” as well as “Analysis of the status quo of the heart failure patient journey”.
The third working group “Data flow in an oncological treatment process” presented the results of its work as a focus of the meeting. The aim was to clearly present the previous data flows and communication scenarios in an oncological treatment process and to evaluate the interoperability of the scenarios. “The results of the working group showed very clearly how little coordination there has been in defining the various data exchange scenarios. The surprising thing was that it turned out that the specifications not only deviate predominantly from international standards, but also, in particular, from one another. We could not find two specifications that were harmonized in data model, representation and exchange protocol. “This has serious implications, not only in terms of the resources required for implementation, but also on costs, software quality and ultimately patient safety,” says the head of the working group, Simone Heckmann, summarizing the results.
Another focus of the session was the contextualization of the topic of the interoperability roadmap and the outlook for the next steps in its creation. As part of the presentation, the guests on site and the participants in the live stream were encouraged to report existing IOP problems, which were then discussed.
The meeting was followed by a “Meet the Council” for the first time. As part of the new format, a personal specialist exchange on interoperability topics took place with the guests at the meeting within various discussion islands. “The opportunity to exchange ideas together was found by everyone involved to be enriching in terms of content. “That’s why dialogue formats will also be an option for future meetings, provided the framework conditions allow it,” says Stefan Höcherl, Head of Strategy & Standards at gematik, summarizing the final part of the meeting.