Connectathon Sept 2016 Recap

[Kevin Shekleton]

Hi everyone!

Last weekend, a bunch of us gathered together in Baltimore to hack on CDS Hooks in the HL7 Connectathon. This was our third outing at a Connectathon and our best yet!

Who Attended?

We were by far the most popular track at the Connectathon with 21 participants. So much so that we were spread out across three tables in the ballroom! To those who were able to participant this time, a heartfelt thank you for helping to provide input into the specification. It really was great to see so many existing and new participants.

At the last Connectathon in Montreal, we had two EHR vendors who brought a CDS Hooks prototype within their respective EHRs. I had a prototype within Cerner's EHR and Isaac Vetter had a working prototype working within Epic's EHR system. I'm really happy to report that in addition to working prototypes within the Cerner and Epic EHRs, Gunther Meyer brought a working prototype in the Allscripts EHR to the Connectathon. Thanks, Gunther!

In addition to the three EHR vendors participating, we had 17 participants representing 11 CDS service providers. We saw CDS services providing decision support around Zika risk assessment and guidance, medication cost and adherence, clinical trial eligibility, and medication education for patients, just to name a few of the many use cases that were implemented during the Connectathon.

The summary slide deck that was presented at the conclusion of the Connectathon is available online here.

What Did We Do?

We adjusted our focus and work at the Connectathon based upon the interests of the participants. A clear focus between all of the participants was hooking up their CDS service to each of the three CDS Hooks EHR implementations. This applied to both someone writing their very first CDS service as well as someone who had an existing CDS service they brought to the Connectathon.

Like past Connectathons, another area of focus was developing as many use cases as possible within CDS Hooks. Stressing the specification in this manner has been incredibly helpful to determining the gaps. This resulted in several great discussions around things like SMART app links (docs#4), security (docs#7), and how CDS services communicate the FHIR version they understand (docs#3).

What's Next?

CDS Hooks will be presented at the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2016 Annual Symposium this November in Chicago. This is a great opportunity to showcase CDS Hooks to a wider audience and demonstrate our work thus far.

We'll take the in person discussions we had this weekend and turn those into concrete decisions and changes to the specification. I'd also like to continue our momentum from the Connectathon into more regular progress and work on the project. I'll have more thoughts and proposals for this later. In the meantime, please feel free to continue to engage here on the mailing, our Github issues, and through code contributions.

Thank you again to everyone who has participated in the Connectathon this past weekend and for your continued interest in CDS Hooks!

-Kevin

[Kalyani Yerra]

Thanks for a great summary Kevin. 

I would also like to see a more regular process like sprints etc and I can help in that process if needed.

Thanks,

Kalyani