Intent to Sole Source: HL7 FHIR Accelerator Membership for the Gravity Project at the Premier Level

HL7 FHIR Accelerators operate within the HL7 organization, but they are separate initiatives from regular HL7 International initiatives. HL7 FHIR accelerators have had great success in engaging implementers as early as possible to help identify and overcome longstanding barriers to interoperability. Gravity is the primary entity developing data standards to address upstream drivers of health and to support the integration of human, social, and clinical services to improve outcomes and reduce administrative burden. This includes developing person and community-level standards to represent upstream drivers as conditions in clinical and social care records, as well as terminology and FHIR standards to connect to and represent core HHS, HUD, and USDA programs in FHIR. Over the course of six years, Gravity developed terminology and exchange standards for 29 upstream domains, including financial drivers, socio-emotional stressors, and environmental exposures. In recent years, Gravity members led efforts to reduce administrative burden by developing standards to support service navigation in open directories and streamline eligibility determination and service reimbursement. Gravity terminology and exchange standards directly support the MAHA mission to address upstream drivers of health outcomes and enable more efficient and accountable national human and social service provision.

Health Level Seven International (HL7) is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited standards developing organization dedicated to providing a comprehensive framework and related standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information that supports clinical practice and the management, delivery, and evaluation of health services. HL7 is supported by more than 1,600 members from over 50 countries, including 500+ corporate members representing healthcare providers, government stakeholders, payers, pharmaceutical companies, vendors/suppliers, and consulting firms. HL7 provides standards for interoperability that improve care delivery, optimize workflow, reduce ambiguity, and enhance knowledge transfer among all our stakeholders, including healthcare providers, government agencies, the vendor community, fellow SDOs, and patients.

The HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) standard defines how healthcare information can be exchanged between different computer systems regardless of how it is stored in those systems. HL7 FHIR gained rapid acceptance on a global scale as an unprecedented, innovative platform standard that can truly enable health data interoperability. Since its inception, FHIR standards development focused on practical implementation and adoption. As an increasing array of use cases emerges, end users and implementers across the health care spectrum are eager to apply the robust capabilities of FHIR to address discrete business needs in their own business areas. HL7 serves as a global convener for standards development to advance effective use of FHIR in meeting the needs of stakeholders in the global healthcare ecosystem.

The HL7 FHIR Accelerator Program seeks to speed the development and availability of FHIR to deliver better data that leads to better health outcomes. The FHIR Accelerator Program assists communities and collaborative groups across the global health care spectrum in the creation and adoption of high quality FHIR Implementation Guides or other standard artifacts to move toward the realization of global health data interoperability.

HL7 FHIR Accelerators operate within the HL7 organization, but they are separate initiatives from regular HL7 International initiatives.

• Participation in FHIR Accelerators is open to all

• Paid membership in an Accelerator allows engagement and input on the work that will be undertaken by the Accelerator

• Paid membership in an Accelerator does not include a membership in HL7 International (and its related privileges, including voting on the implementation guides created by the Accelerator and balloted through the HL7 process)

• HL7 membership does not include membership privileges within any of the FHIR Accelerators