Joe Gagnon, CEO, and Dr. Don Rucker, Chief Strategy Officer, interviewed by HIMSS TV

HIMSS TV recently featured an interview with 1upHealth’s CEO, Joe Gagnon, and Chief Strategy Officer, Dr. Don Rucker, as part of their HIMSS 22 recap video. Together they discussed the importance of FHIR® and interoperability for the healthcare industry, and what 1upHealth is doing to lead the charge.

To watch the interview in full*, click here: Watch Video

*1upHealth’s segment starts at 0:24:28

This video was originally published by HIMSS TV. 

FHIR and Interoperability as Transformational Agents for Healthcare

Q: Where are we at with interoperability? 

Joe’s Answer: I think on the interoperability train we’ve failed as an industry a couple of times, but we’re back at it using some new concepts like FHIR to help really establish data standards to think more beyond just patient to provider interoperability, and really thinking about the population level. And then broadly about all stakeholders and connecting the community – really thinking more holistically. Other industries have used standards to improve outcomes, and we’ve got to do the same here in healthcare.

Q: Clearly data sharing is important, but it sounds like there are going to be different ways it’s put out there for different people. Can you speak more about this?

Don’s Answer: I think historically data has been locked up in the HRs which were really designed for billing documentation. In our modern smartphone world, it’s really about how you put data on servers and use it in real time. If you’re really going to change something it has to be immensely scalable and usable in real time. But this requires standards, and we need to be extraordinarily smart about how we index the data to find it in an API, and to do it in a way that protects privacy. 

You know the classic ways of looking at data databases are very coarse in terms of privacy. If you want to have new business models, new ways of interacting with patients, you have to be super granular and fast on how you protect privacy. All of this is an opportunity that the cloud and modern software stacks afford you. That’s really what 1upHealth is about – using these new approaches including indexing . . . having better, faster, search for this in a more privacy protected way. 

Joe’s Answer: And the other part we really care about is that at some point the patient becomes a consumer and a customer. They don’t feel stuck in a system that drives it to the outcome it wants. When we get choice like in every other industry, when we have to pay in a different way, when we care about the outcomes that we get, when we want an experience that matters to us – the only way to get there is to think about the next 5-10 years as a transformation opportunity for the industry. 

About HIMSS TV:

HIMSS TV is an online broadcasting network focused on global innovation and how technology is driving change in healthcare. Produced by HIMSS Media, HIMSS TV reaches 350K viewers per month; content is often syndicated on HIMSS Media sister sites like Healthcare IT News, MobiHealthNews, and Healthcare Finance News.

About 1upHealth: 

1upHealth is the leading FHIR® platform that connects an ecosystem of payers, providers, patients, life sciences, and app developers within a trusted interoperability network. Unlike legacy enterprise companies, 1upHealth was created and built with the modern healthcare infrastructure in mind. The 1up FHIR® platform is serverless with cloud-native applications that transform data at enterprise scale with greater ease and simplicity to improve patient outcomes, drive population-level analytics and enable medical innovation. Founded in 2017, the company is connected to more than 10,000 clinical and payer endpoints with best-in-class FHIR® APIs. Gartner designated 1upHealth a “Cool Vendor in Healthcare Interoperability” for its FHIR® platform.