Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has become the first in the UK to implement open-standard FHIR APIs for Cerner Millenium.
Developed by Health Level 7 International (HL7) and deployed by Cerner as part of its Open Developer Experience programme, the Ignite APIs for Millennium will allow the trust to integrate third-party applications with its electronic patient record (EPR) system.
It is hoped the deployment of the APIs across Oxford University Hospitals will enable apps developed in Oxford and elsewhere in the UK to reach the global market more quickly, by removing interoperability barriers.
As such, it will also allow global application suppliers to more easily scale their products through the NHS, according to Cerner.
Paul Altmann, CCIO at Oxford University Hospitals, said the trust was optimistic about “the potential unlocked by this project”.
Altmann added: “Our recent go-live with the APIs is just the first landmark in this ongoing project, and while there is still a lot to be done, it was certainly a huge step towards our vision of delivering and developing excellence and value in patient care.
“We will continue to work closely with our health partners in the region and in the wider system to advance this initiative and outline the appropriate use of it to ensure benefits for patients and clinicians remain at the heart of every decision we make going forward.”
Cerner, a founding member of INTEROPen, is developing UK-specific FHIR profiles as part of the CareConnect API proposal, with the aim of encouraging adoption of the standard across the UK.
Geoff Segal, Cerner UK general manager, added: “Throughout our longstanding partnership with OUH they have repeatedly confirmed their pledge to provide the best possible care for their patients.
“We are delighted to continue to partner with them in their digital evolution and their mission to drive forward innovation and change in the region.
“We are confident it is the beginning of an exciting journey with great benefits ahead, and we are eager to see more projects like this rolled out across the UK, and keep progressing our technology to meet our partners’ and their communities’ needs.”
28 November 2018 @ 08:21
I agree that FHIR interfaces will be useful but I thought that interoperability with primary care for instance in relation to drugs and diagnoses might be a first use case? Or even publishing test results to a common “normalised” data repository. Also, I would like to see how ingested data is put into clinicians workflow.
28 November 2018 @ 21:43
Gp sector would be a good start but acute, nhs digital (another fhir system – nrls gone live this week) and others are moving at a much faster pace.
You can combine these systems quite easily with a shared record viewer or portal. Interopen had several demonstrated this month.
27 November 2018 @ 08:53
Ensuring clinicians get access to relevant clinical information within the appropriate clinical workflows in order to make better clinical decisions for better patient outcomes is not faffing about IMO. FHIR opens up a whole new world of interoperability and Oxford, as a GDE, will be enabling development of these standard based apps for the rest of the NHS to make use of.