Digital Health Thoughts

It is breathtaking to read the statistics highlighting the sheer growth of data that is being captured globally. For example, every two days we create as much information as we did from the beginning of time until 2003; over 90% of all the data in the world was created over the past two years; if we burn all the data created in just one day onto CD-ROMs we could stack them on top of each other and reach the moon twice. Although traditionally the healthcare industry has lagged behind other industries in implementing technology, there is no reason to think that it will not embrace this trend of data explosion. We are seeing new medical devices collecting high-resolution data being introduced to the market and wearable devices promising disruptive breakthroughs. This year there will be over 1.2 billon smartphones in the world which are stuffed full of sensors and data collection features. Another trend that has been already discussed at length is that of the ageing population. The

As a technologist, I am always skeptical when hearing about a brand new technology that is going to solve all of our current problems. I feel it is my responsibility to warn people about these types of promises. Claims of “solving all healthcare information exchange (HIE) problems” are often being made about the emerging HL7 FHIR standard. According to Gartner’s hype cycle, the standard is at the “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” which I view as a stage where wishful thinking fills the gap created by a lack of knowledge and understanding. FHIR, which stands for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, is a draft standard from HL7 International. This standard is designed to be easier to implement, more open and more extensible than its predecessors, V2 and V3 standards. So what’s the big deal here? Aren’t we simply replacing one transport protocol with another? FHIR claims to bring a change in paradigm to the way health information can be accessed and consumed. Since FHIR is