Colorado Regional Health Information Organization (CORHIO), an independent, nonprofit organization, announced the successful launch of a new technology innovation that will make healthcare data even more portable in Colorado. The launching announcement was made by CORHIO CEO Morgan Honea at the Prime Health Innovation Summit in Denver.

A proof of concept is underway that utilizes Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources – or FHIR (pronounced FIRE) – to provide user-configurable access to retrieve and view the patient data contained in the CORHIO health information exchange.

With funding from the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, CORHIO has developed the architecture to utilize FHIR to greatly enhance clinical data access in a secure environment and position the health information exchange for advanced future applications.

“Starting next month, CORHIO will add FHIR-based API access to the CORHIO environment,” says Morgan Honea, CORHIO CEO. “This enables access to one of the largest healthcare data environments in the United States. Our first use case is based on consumer-driven consent which will begin to bridge the divide between the clinical data ecosystem and the consumer-facing application domain.”

FHIR is a registered trademark of HL7 and according to their website “…is a next generation standards framework created by HL7. FHIR is suitable for use in a wide variety of contexts – mobile phone apps, cloud communications, EHR-based data sharing, server communication in large institutional healthcare providers, and much more.”

FHIR is often explained as an infrastructure that enables a model similar to the apps that we have on our smart phones.

CORHIO’s use of this new technology is in sync with the organization’s dedication to an interoperable approach to improving health outcomes. Without access to all the information available on a patient, including medications, test results and recent hospitalizations or emergency room visits, providers cannot make the best, most informed decisions for the patient.

It is CORHIO’s hope that this enhanced FHIR functionality will enable more advanced population health management to support value-based healthcare in Colorado.

CORHIO also plans to advance health information exchange beyond clinical data to include new types of patient information, such as social determinants of health (housing, transportation, financial). Gathering data from disparate sources beyond hospitals and labs opens up the use of CORHIO’s network in exciting new ways that are just starting to be explored. This work puts Colorado’s healthcare community on the forefront of data exchange technology.

CORHIO (the Colorado Regional Health Information Organization) is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving healthcare quality through the optimal use of health information exchange (HIE). The CORHIO HIE is one of the largest and most robust health information exchange networks in the United States with more than 10,000 users and 61 hospitals currently connected.