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Wes Barker

Portrait of Wes Barker

Wes Barker's Latest Blog Posts

Shining a Light on FHIR Implementation: Progress Toward Publishing FHIR Endpoints

Wes Barker | February 1, 2022

Using APIs “without Special Effort”

The ONC’s Cures Act Final Rule (Cures Rule) supports patients’ and providers’ access to electronic health information (EHI) through Health Level Seven (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) application programming interfaces (APIs). FHIR is ready for prime-time and the Cures Rule requires certain developers of certified health IT to provide a certified, FHIR API to their customer base by December 31, 2022.

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Research Results Published: More Apps are Integrating with EHRs

Wes Barker | September 24, 2021

New ONC research shows a more than 20% rise in the number of apps that integrate with certified electronic health records (EHRs).
A manuscript highlighting the findings of this research was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association: The Ecosystem of Apps and Software integrated with Certified Health Information Technology”. Our study analyzed apps that were discoverable in app galleries managed by EHR developers – Allscripts,

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The Heat is On: US Caught FHIR in 2019

Wes Barker | July 29, 2021

In 2018, the United States was at a turning point with respect to the adoption and implementation of the Health Level Seven (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) standard in health information technology (health IT). At that time, our analysis, outlined in a previous blog post predicted that the U.S. could soon see widespread adoption of certified application programming interface (API) technology enabled with FHIR. The results are in, and the findings are encouraging.

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Does ONC’s Certification Program Affect Interoperability? New Evidence and Implications

Wes Barker | July 20, 2021

ONC is excited to share findings from newly published research that sheds light on the impact adoption of 2015 Edition certified health information technology (health IT) has had on hospitals’ rates of interoperability. In a recently published Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association article called Impact of the 2015 Health Information Technology Certification Edition on Interoperability among Hospitals, we examined how variation in the adoption of 2015 Edition certified health IT impacted key measures of interoperable exchange.

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Advancing Interoperable Social Determinants of Health Data

Wes Barker | December 12, 2019

The ability to capture, use, and exchange many aspects of electronic health information has greatly advanced with the increased adoption of health information technology (health IT). Yet the use of data reflecting social determinants of health (SDOH) – the conditions in which people live, learn, work, and play – remains much more limited across healthcare. There is a growing recognition across healthcare that by capturing and accessing SDOH data during the course of care,

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