RFP Language for Buying SMART-Compatible HIT

SMART Platform (www.smarthealthit.org) is a project that lays the groundwork for a more flexible approach to sourcing health information technology tools. Like Apple and Android’s app stores, SMART creates the means for developers to create and for health systems and providers to easily deploy third-party applications in tandem with their existing electronic health record, data warehouse, or health information exchange platforms.

To deploy SMART-enabled applications, health systems must ensure that their existing health information technology infrastructure supports the SMART on FHIR API. The SMART on FHIR starter set detailed below lists the minimum requirements for supporting the API and SMART-enabled applications. You may wish to augment this list of minimum requirements with suggestions from the Add-On Functionality listed depending on the types of applications your organization wishes to deploy.
Continue reading “RFP Language for Buying SMART-Compatible HIT”

In the New England Journal of Medicine:
Letting the Air out of EHRs

Mandl and Kohane in the NEJM

Mandl and Kohane in the New England Journal of Medicine: Escaping the EHR Trap — The Future of Health IT [PDF]. It is a widely accepted myth that medicine requires complex, highly specialized information technology (IT) systems. This myth continues to justify soaring IT costs, burdensome physician workloads, and stagnation in innovation — while doctors become increasingly bound to documentation and communication products that are functionally decades behind those they use in their “civilian” life.

National Coordinator Cites SMART as #1 Approach for Government Improving HIT

As reported in the Boston Globe, Farzad Mostashari, at the Health 2.o conference, observed that “The investments in research and development that are going on in the consumer technology space are now dwarfing the investment and innovation that are happening in, say, the military.” As an approach the government can take to promoting improvements in HIT, he cites the SMART project “where Zak Kohane and Ken Mandl are developing a system of “iPhone-like” medical apps designed so that they can be easily swapped out when better ones are developed but that allow for easy saving and transfer of data to a new program.”

Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for HIT, to keynote 2012 Indivo X Annual User’s Conference

Announcing the 2012 Indivo X Annual User’s Conference

Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology , will keynote the 2012 Indivo X Annual User’s Conference at Harvard Medical School June 18th-19th.

The 2012 Indivo X Annual User’s Conference to be held on June 18th-19th at Harvard Medical School’s Countway Library. Details and registration are available below. This meeting will have a technical focus, but will be of interest if you are:

  • Considering adopting Indivo for your health system
  • Integrating Indivo into your business offerings
  • Using Indivo for your research
  • Adding Patient Reported Outcomes to your registries or trials
  • Deeply in the Indivo X codebase
  • Interested in developing apps for Indivo X
  • Adopting the SMART platform and looking to add patient-facing apps

The Main Conference hours are Monday, June 18, from 1-5:30pm. Topics will include:

  • The Indivo X Release
  • Integration of Indivo X with www.SMARTPlatforms.org
  • Integration of Indivo X with www.i2b2.org
  • Indivo X iOS Framework
  • The upcoming Indivo Challenge
  • Lightning talks by Indivo implementers

On Tuesday, June 19th from 8am-3pm, we will run an all-day hackathon to design and begin implementing innovative patient-facing apps on top of Indivo. The morning will be spent brainstorming, connecting with teams around shared interests, and designing apps, and the afternoon will be devoted to implementation. This event is NOT limited to developers—health professionals, innovators from industry, or anyone with a good idea for an app will be invaluable for making the most of the hackathon. The Indivo team will be on hand to provide support and advice throughout the day.

Space is limited—please register here: Users’ Conference and Hackathon Registration Form

If you have any questions about the event or registration please contact skyler.kelemen@childrens.harvard.edu

Looking forward to seeing you there!

April 27th Webinar: How to Become a SMART Container

SMART Webinar April 27

Learn how your health IT system can harness the power of the developer community.

The SMART (Substitutable Medical Apps, Reusable Technologies) project is working to lower the barriers for external developers to create innovative healthcare apps. A SMART-enabled health IT system will be positioned to take advantage of these innovations and make them available to its users.

Attend our webinar and learn how your health IT system can become SMART.
April 27, 2011 2:00 – 3:00 P.M. Eastern

http://hms.webex.com/hms/j.php?ED=140265297&UID=0&PW=NY2QzZGM4OTBk&RT=Mi
MxMQ%3D%3D Meeting Number: 716 280 736 Meeting Password: SHARP

To join the audio conference only:
Call-in toll-free number (US/Canada): 1-866-699-3239
Call-in toll number (US/Canada): 1-408-792-6300
Access code: 716 280 736

US CTO Aneesh Chopra Blogs SMART Challenge

Read Mr. Chopra’s White House blog here. He states, “This development will dramatically expand the market for health IT by offering applications that can meet any niche and any need – from individual consumers to small practices to large organizations—thereby making the transformative power of health IT felt more fully and broadly.”

The SMART Apps Challenge is Live!

The Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology has posted the SMART Apps Challenge on Challenge.gov.

BOSTON, March 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Through a grant from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School have developed a first-of-its kind platform architecture to support a flexible health information technology (IT) environment and promote innovation. The SMArt (Substitutable Medical Applications, reusable technologies) platform and interface are being made publicly available today to kick off the start of a $5,000 competition challenging developers to create web applications that provide specific functionality for patients, physicians, or for public health.

First described in a March 2009 New England Journal of Medicine Perspectives article, the SMArt architecture is an “iPhone-like” health IT platform model that aims to transform the way health IT supports health care by facilitating the development of medical applications that are scalable and substitutable; that will drive competition, innovation, and increased efficiency in the functionality of technology for improved health care.

ONC awarded $15 million to the project in April 2010 through the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) program. The SMArt project will enable the equivalent of an iTunes App Store for health and support an ecosystem of applications ranging from medication managers for patients at home to e-prescribing applications and decision support for physicians in the office.

“The goal of this model is to enable a substantial shift towards technologies that are flexible and able to quickly adapt to meet the various needs of their users on a variety of devices,” said Kenneth Mandl, M.D., MPH, of the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program and Harvard Medical School, and co-lead on the SMArt project. “As developers begin to compete on quality, value and usability, we expect to see the introduction of an array of innovative functions and a drop in the cost of healthcare technology. Just as staple applications of the iPad, Android, and Blackberry platforms constantly evolve and compete to meet user demands, the SMArt platform will enable health IT to do the same.”

In August, Mandl and Isaac Kohane, M.D., Ph.D., also of CHIP, Harvard Medical School and co-lead on the SMArt project, held a SMArt Developer Meeting which included more than 60 representatives from academia, government and business. Multiple prototypes of the SMArt platform were presented and feedback was collected from software developers and the health IT community. Following that meeting, the team built the SMArt platform architecture and interface that is being made publicly available today.

“There is an enormous talent pool available in our country’s developers and entrepreneurs to help drive new web and mobile health IT solutions that support health care functions,” said Kohane. “Through this competition we hope to excite this pool; to spark their imaginations and partner with them to move new ideas forward.”

“Future developments in health IT should always be driven by empowering physicians and improving patient care,” said Wil Yu, director of the SHARP program at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.

Developers interested in learning more about the SMArt project and/or participating in the SMArt health app challenge may visit www.smarthealthit.org/challenge for complete details and an environment for development. Entrants are eligible to receive an award – $5,000 and release in an “App Store” – for best application.

A panel of industry leaders has been assembled to judge the challenge and will review submitted apps and announce winners in June 2011. Judges will include Susanna Fox, director of Health Research at the Pew Internet & American Life Project; Regina Herzlinger, the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School; David Kibbe, senior advisor to the American Academy of Family Physicians and principal at The Kibbe Group LLC; Ben Shneiderman, professor of Computer Science at the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland, College Park; Doug Solomon, chief technology officer at IDEO; Edward Tufte, professor emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University; and Jim Walker, chief health information officer at Geisenger Health Systems.

Children’s Hospital Boston is home to the world’s largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries have benefited both children and adults since 1869. More than 1,100 scientists, including nine members of the National Academy of Sciences, 12 members of the Institute of Medicine and 13 members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Children’s research community. Founded as a 20-bed hospital for children, Children’s Hospital Boston today is a 392-bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care grounded in the values of excellence in patient care and sensitivity to the complex needs and diversity of children and families. Children’s also is the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. For more information about the hospital and its research visit: www.childrenshospital.org/newsroom.

Harvard Medical School has more than 7,500 full-time faculty working in 11 academic departments located at the School’s Boston campus or in one of 47 hospital-based clinical departments at 17 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes. Those affiliates include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Children’s Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Forsyth Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Hebrew SeniorLife, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children’s Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and VA Boston Healthcare System.

CONTACT:

Keri Stedman
Children’s Hospital Boston
617-919-3110
keri.stedman@childrens.harvard.edu

David Cameron
Harvard Medical School
617-432-0441
David_Cameron@hms.harvard.edu

Early experiences with personal health records

Halamka, J. D., Mandl, K. D., and Tang, P. C. Early experiences with personal health records. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2008;1-7