INTEROPen partners with Digital Health to promote interoperability

Digital Health and INTEROPen have formed a partnership to accelerate the adoption of interoperability in UK healthcare.

The joint partnership brings together the communities of both organisations through a wide-ranging programme of knowledge transfer, collaborative working and leadership development.

Part of the partnership will include Digital Health working with  INTEROPen to accelerate the co-production and wide-scale adoption of interoperability standards across the health and social care sector.

INTEROPen will become the official interoperability partner across Digital Health’s industry leading publishing, leadership networks and events. Starting with the Digital Health Rewired event on 25-26 March, 2019, members of the INTEROPen community will feature heavily on the Integrated Care Showcase and Rewired Hackday. INTEROPen will also shape the 2019 Summer Schools.

The new partnership builds on the strong ties between the CCIO and CIO Networks and INTEROPen, with members of the CCIO and CIO Advisory Panels who are also on the INTEROPen Board.

More regular and closer collaboration on interoperability standards development will now be possible as the Digital Health Networks’ online community – now with over 2,600 active participants – will welcome INTEROPen members to its popular online forum which already hosts the CCIO Health CIO and CNIO Networks, as well as the Faculty of Clinical Informatics and UK Caldicott Guardians Council. This will strengthen collaboration amongst the many stakeholders with an interest in interoperability as Digital Health’s online community will now be open to INTEROPen’s 287 member organisations, of which 176 are IT Suppliers.

The new partnership is timely as it supports health secretary Matt Hancock’s recent call for ‘robust standards’ to deliver the NHS’ ‘tech revolution’, and provides a boost for NHS IT leaders challenged to deliver on interoperability, which was named a priority in the Digital Health’s 2018 NHS IT Leadership Survey.  

Jon Hoeksma, CEO of Digital Health said: “Interoperability is a critical part of the digital challenge facing the NHS and is for the first time getting real attention from the Secretary of State. INTEROPen has been instrumental in getting interoperability on the agenda and is playing a vital leadership role.

“Digital Health has long supported the work and growth of INTEROPen; they have made significant strides in creating Care Connect FHIR profiles which are starting to be used within the NHS. We are pleased to have formalised a long-standing relationship to help push open standards to the next level” added Hoeksma.  

Representatives from INTEROPen will also become regular editorial and webinar contributors to Digital Health News, providing comment and expertise on the latest work around integrated care and interoperable open standards.

Luke Readman, co-chair of INTEROPen, and SRO of the One London Local Health and Care Record Exemplar (LHCRE), said: “The INTEROPen community is well placed to support the Secretary of State’s vision to deliver interoperability into the service because our members understand that the solutions need to address both the adaptive challenge of creating useful, usable and used standards, as well as the variation of end-point maturity of systems in the NHS.

“This digital transformation requires a shift in leadership thinking where local areas and regions become front and centre in providing the solutions. Our leadership and community structure aims to give a much greater voice to clinicians, vendors and local areas, and the partnership with Digital Health will strengthen this with the expertise of CIOs, CCIOs and CNIOs.”

A selection of videos on FHIR and interoperability can be found on INTEROPen’s YouTube channel and are from the community’s launch event, INTEROP SUMMIT.