With a heightened focal point on well being fairness right through our paintings, ONC has followed the idea that of “well being fairness via design.” Alongside the ones traces, well being IT can, and will have to, be used to raised determine and mitigate disparities whilst improving alternatives for underrepresented populations. In 2019, beneath the Main Edge Acceleration Initiatives (LEAP) for Well being IT program, ONC funded the College of Texas at Austin’s Dell Scientific Faculty (Dell Med) to design, increase, and show enhanced affected person engagement applied sciences for care and analysis, with a focal point on well being fairness.
The Dell Med staff proposed creating a affected person engagement generation platform the use of software programming interfaces (APIs) and the similar nationwide requirements for interoperability, safety, and authorization being utilized by digital well being information, particularly FHIR® and SMART on FHIR.
Designing the FHIRedApp Platform
The FHIRedApp platform was once designed the use of human-centered design method to spot the wishes and personal tastes of a various staff of Latino, African-American, and Asian-American sufferers. To design an easy-to-use platform, the staff held 20 Group Engagement Studio (CES) classes with ethnically and racially numerous sufferers from Central Texas. The method concerned beta trying out, semi-structured interviews, and pilot trying out with members to make sure the app’s excessive usability.
A neighborhood navigator led every CES consultation, and the dialogue subjects integrated neighborhood well being reports, neighborhood readiness, design personal tastes, adoption, and sustainability. The method for designing the app additionally integrated human-centered design methodologies and insights amassed from the CES classes helped known options and functions that ethnically and racially numerous sufferers desired from a well being app platform. A high-fidelity prototype of the app (Determine 1) was once then evolved, beta examined via numerous sufferers, and utilized by the improvement staff to code for the general app.
Determine 1: FHIRedApp high-fidelity prototype
Whilst the FHIRedApp will be capable of connect with FHIR API endpoints equipped via qualified EHR applied sciences required via the ONC Remedies Act Ultimate Rule, the platform has additionally been designed to leverage well being data exchanges (HIEs) and analysis networks, which act as knowledge aggregators from a couple of EHRs. The FHIRedApp may be an app platform that permits sufferers to achieve get entry to to their knowledge, grant get entry to to all or a part of their knowledge, and make it to be had to third-party app builders by means of FHIR APIs. The Dell Med staff is at the moment creating a pilot app to lend a hand with recruitment for analysis research and integration with social products and services referral networks.
The advance of FHIRedApp has proven how generation inventions the use of FHIR APIs for exchanging knowledge can also be knowledgeable via a strategy of neighborhood engagement and human-centered design. Having a look ahead, the staff and neighborhood participants hope to repeatedly be offering further options and improvements at the platform and take a look at scalability the use of different HIEs and information resources sooner or later. To be informed extra about this challenge, learn the Dell Med staff’s findings.