Market Trends: While FHIR Continues to Heat Up, Enterprise HIT Vendor Exits Space

The first step of a modern, digital revolution in healthcare is getting data transformed to Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (“FHIR”) and accessible through FHIR APIs. CMS’s Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule was a catalyst for this change over the past few years.  But it wasn’t an easy journey for the industry – health plans or their vendors. 1upHealth was well positioned to help our customers take the initial steps with confidence. There are a few  trends unfolding before our eyes: 

  1. Using FHIR and FHIR APIs as the default means of exchanging data (receiving and sharing) with industry business partners – providers, vendors, and more
  2. Harnessing the computational value of a JSON-based data model where analytic interactions between financial and clinical data are second-nature
  3. Preparing for the next wave of CMS regulations: payer to payer, prior authorization, and more. 

This is where we’ll see the market start to sort itself out. Those organizations holding onto their legacy, proprietary data models will not be set up for success.  Those organizations operating facade FHIR on-demand models will just create one-way streets with data lags and quality issues.  Those organizations taking on FHIR Data Platforms as a side-job to their other business lines will do themselves and their customers a disservice.  

Somewhere in that noise we’ve seen our first household name vendor pull out of the FHIR space. Change Healthcare, recently acquired by Optum, notified their estimated 30+ customers that they will sunset their Connected Consumer Health Platform on January 31, 2024..  This was the product that enabled their customers to achieve compliance with the Patient Access Rule.  

The investments a vendor must make to create the infrastructure for the future compliance and operating needs are significant.  1upHealth was purpose-built to help our customers move to a FHIR-first strategy, leveraging modern cloud and API technologies to catch up with the rest of the internet economy.  With our latest $40M Series C funding from top tier growth investor Sixth Street, 1upHealth is well positioned to continue to support your data needs of today and tomorrow. 

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