2022 Use Cases

The Helios Priority Areas Have Been Selected for 2022!

The Helios Interim Steering Committee has identified three Priority Areas for 2022.  Sign-up now to participate in the Helios Project Teams and help Helios advance public health interoperability! 

During 2022, Helios will focus on three priority areas: 

Make Data in Public Health Information Systems Accessible in Bulk (Starting with Immunization Information Systems)  

Ensure authorized users of immunization information systems can access vaccination data in bulk. 

This will help health providers and payers to proactively support their patient populations by addressing gaps in care and preventing redundancies while lowering burden on state public health agencies and on data requestors. Helios members will help create a uniform process for querying immunization data in IIS, leveraging BulkFHIR. Helios members will also assist in developing implementation guidance and open-source code samples, conducting pilots, and participating in Connectathons. 

Align and Optimize Public Health Data Sharing    

Identify commonalities and optimal ways for public health to access data in EHRs that would not be easily available under existing data channels. 

This will demonstrate ways in which FHIR can help support public health action and improve the quality and consistency of public health data shared nationwide while saving time, money, and effort. Helios members will identify common requirements and assess various FHIR-based paradigms for accessing and exchanging patient-level data in EHRs. Helios members will also identify opportunities for collaboration and accelerated development with industry and will pilot a subset of the approaches identified. The assessment and pilots will inform a strategic roadmap to help align and advance public health adoption of FHIR moving forward. 

Deliver Aggregate Information to Public Health  

Provide public health critical data needed on healthcare resource capacity during emergencies and other events of public health importance. 

This will help address a wide range of public health preparedness and data aggregation needs while lessening the strain on health care and public health during times when both systems are most taxed. Helios members will focus on one or two measures (e.g., bed count, supply inventory) and demonstrate ways FHIR can help deliver mission-critical capacity information to public health partners on the front lines both during emergencies and routine operations. 

Next Steps:  

In the next several weeks, the Helios Interim Steering Committee will be recruiting and standing up an Operating Committee who will work to further refine the scope of the three focus areas into use cases that can be implemented within a year.  Project Teams are also being assembled to achieve the objectives in the priority areas. 

Project Team Expectations: 

• One Project Team per priority area led by a set of champions 
• Responsible for fulfilling the priority area objectives and deliverables as determined with the Operating Committee 
• Made up of members with the skill sets necessary to carry out the work (including technical application of FHIR, workflows, data content, etc. related to the specific use case)
• Members may participate in one, two or all of the priority areas
• Participation is open to all individuals with a willingness to work toward the fulfillment of the priority area(s) 

The ask of you 

Helios is actively recruiting pilot partners and members. Interested parties are encouraged to email us at helios@hl7.org.   

To learn more about Helios, please visit:  

Helios HL7 Homepage: http://www.hl7.org/helios/ 

Helios ListServ: helios@lists.hl7.org 

Join Helios ListServ: http://www.hl7.org/myhl7/managelistservs.cfm 

And as always, if you have questions, reach out to us at helios@hl7.org. Or start a community conversation on the Helios Accelerator Zulip stream.