Published on July 16, 2018 by Anthony J. Chan
We held FHIR Starter, the first FHIR conference in Eastern Europe on June 25-26 2018. The conference was dedicated to educating attendees about the HL7 FHIR standard, building the implementer community, and coming together to share approaches for international health IT systems design.
FHIR has caught momentum all over the world, and we experienced the passion and curiosity of the 119 participants at the conference for ourselves. People asked thoughtful questions and the conversations were meaningful and engaging. We thank everyone who came to the event for their support of FHIR and look forward to seeing you all again at the next FHIR Starter conference.
We are grateful to the sponsors and partners of the conference: WaveAccess, Robomed Network, EverCare, Netrika, and SPb MIAC. Your support made this event possible.
For those of you who couldn’t attend the conference, we wrote a short recap of the keynotes and shared the links to the presentations and videos in this blog. Video recordings of the conference are available thanks to our partner EverCare.ru.
FHIR Starter consisted of two tracks: one with FHIR speaker presentations and another interactive track that served as an introduction to FHIR. We made sure to have content that would be diverse so the conference would be meaningful for both experienced FHIR implementers and anyone who is just beginning to learn about FHIR.
First FHIR Starter Track - Speaker presentations
The first track featured 11 speakers who delivered 13 presentations for us. Below are brief summaries of their talks with links to the presentations and videos. The first presentation was a speech from no other than the creator and leader of the international standard HL7 FHIR himself - Grahame Grieve. Grahame introduced the audience to FHIR and the FHIR community, and talked about how to work with terminology services.
Talk #1: Introduction to FHIR and the FHIR Community
In the first keynote, Grahame Grieve spoke about the history of HL7 standards development, the emergence of the FHIR standard, and emphasized FHIR core principles and the importance and activity of an international HL7 FHIR community. Grahame also talked about one of the most interesting FHIR projects called ‘Argonaut’, and mentioned that HL7 FHIR is already being used by tech giants as Google and Apple. He also encouraged all the attendees to become a part of the growing, global FHIR community where every developer can come to learn, participate and contribute.
Slides (in English): https://bit.ly/2tMPNMZ
Video (in English and Russian): https://youtu.be/23sfSt0tGj8?t=4737
Talk #2 : Understanding Terminology & the Terminology Service
For his second presentation, Grahame Grieve talked about how to work with HL7 FHIR terminology systems, the core concepts, documentation and the API, and about open terminology servers.
Video #1 (in English and Russian): https://youtu.be/u5KtncpKEY8?t=3598
Video #2 (in English and Russian): https://youtu.be/u5KtncpKEY8?t=9906
We also heard two talks from another member of the core FHIR team, Lloyd McKenzie.
Talk #1: FHIR Architecture Considerations
As part of his first presentation, Lloyd talked about the four primary interoperability paradigms of healthcare data exchange supported by HL7 FHIR: REST, Documents, Messages and Services, along with the pros and cons of each approach, and their usage scopes.
Slides (in English): http://bit.ly/2tMsmng
Video (in English and Russian): https://youtu.be/23sfSt0tGj8?t=16980
Talk #2: Business Cases, What We’re Doing in Canada
In his second presentation, Lloyd spoke about how healthcare is governed in Canada, along with where and why HL7 FHIR is used in the country.
Slides (in English): http://bit.ly/2KGoavJ
Video (in English and Russian): https://youtu.be/u5KtncpKEY8?t=14585
In addition to the creators of the HL7 FHIR, experts from Russia, Germany and the U.S. who are using HL7 FHIR in their projects took part in the conference. Here are links to their presentations and videos of the talks:
“FHIR as a business” by Pavel Smirnov, Health Samurai
Video (in English and Russian): https://youtu.be/23sfSt0tGj8?t=2168
“FHIR as a platform for future healthcare apps” Nikolay Ryzhikov, Health Samurai
Slides (in English): https://niquola.github.io/fhirstarter-2018-slides/#/
Video (in English and Russian): https://youtu.be/23sfSt0tGj8?t=12411
“Development of AI-based analytical systems for medical decision making support” by Alex Azarov, WaveAccess
Slides (in Russian): http://bit.ly/2MIbR2j
Video (in Russian): https://youtu.be/23sfSt0tGj8?t=10189
“Ordering for laboratory research on FHIR” by Alexander Ivanov, Medlinx
Slides (in Russian): http://bit.ly/2z8qgDo
Video (in Russian): https://youtu.be/23sfSt0tGj8?t=22009
“Clinical decision support system on FHIR resources” by Ilya Semenov, Medlinx
Slides (in Russian): http://bit.ly/2KB9pdp
Video (in Russian): https://youtu.be/u5KtncpKEY8?t=8138
“Robomed API: Integration Scenarios for FHIR” by Sergey Rykov, Robomed Network
Slides (in English): http://bit.ly/2lMyE1y
Video (in English and Russian): https://youtu.be/23sfSt0tGj8?t=24501
“Using International Information Coding Systems to build the TealNet Medical Platform” by Ruslan Absalyamov, TealTech
Slides (in Russian): http://bit.ly/2ILncMM
Video (in Russian): https://youtu.be/23sfSt0tGj8?t=26967
“Health Information System: Integration Approach” by Vladimir Tourine, Netrika
Slides (in Russian): http://bit.ly/2yYzKRy
Video (in Russian): https://youtu.be/u5KtncpKEY8?t=961
“FHIR for the Saint-Petersburg HealthCare: Solved and Forthcoming Objectives” by Evgeny Kogan, SPb MIAC
Slides (in Russian): http://bit.ly/2NlZ478
Video (Russian): https://youtu.be/u5KtncpKEY8?t=19017
Second FHIR Starter Track: Connectathons, Live Workshops, Discussions
The second track of FHIR Starter was themed “Introduction to HL7 FHIR” and ran as an interactive connectathon where attendees had the chance to dive into real live case studies and work through use cases. This was a lively and engaging experience, with many active listeners participating. We were asked great questions about FHIR and shared a meaningful learning experience with the attendees. Over the course of the 2 days, FHIR experts from Health Samurai gave talks, workshops and led discussions on various topics:
- Overview of Business Logical Resources for HL7 FHIR
- Slides (in Russian): http://bit.ly/2lPAK0G
- Lecture and workshop on FHIR API (MetaModel, embedded in HL7 FHIR)
- Slides (in English and Russian): http://bit.ly/2KDuSCE
- Approaches in working with Terminologies
- Slides (in English): http://bit.ly/2MHpX4i
As part of the event, a separate discussion group was organized where anyone could write the questions they had on a flipchart for the core FHIR team members Grahame Grieve and Lloyd McKenzie. In between breaks, Grahame and Lloyd answered those questions and engaged in dialogue with everyone interested.
The conference went so well that we’ve already decided to host the second FHIR Starter in June 2019. Join our group on Facebook to get updates about FHIR in Russia and next year’s FHIR Starter: https://www.facebook.com/healthsamurai/community/. And if you would like to become a speaker or get an early invitation to next year’s conference, reach out to us at hello@health-samurai.io.
Photo gallery: https://bit.ly/2IJqKPH
See you at FHIR Starter 2019!
