CODA: the back story, part 5

Last post of prologue...

On April 26, after the adrenaline rush of stepping out into mid-air and hoping a bridge would appear had faded, along with the inevitable second-guessing ("oh my, what have I done?"), I decreed the launch of the "Open Interoperability Consortium," as my hobby-turned-vocation needed a name somewhat more descriptive than "the big tent alliance."  Of course, ever agile, the name has evolved one step further, to CODA as the "big tent" effort is now known.  The last big email I sent out was the last I will send out, replaced going forward by short headline update emails, this blog, and a few other channels.

** This is the fourth in a series of emails that began on March 13, 2015. Welcome to new readers -- please let me know if you want to see previous emails or want to be removed from this list. ** 

This enterprise continues to evolve and now has a name: the Open Interoperability Consortium. It's still all about creating a "big tent" of broadly representative stakeholders. It's still about "mission-critical collaboration." A sharper definition of this alliance of individuals and organizations is emerging. The Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap (Draft v1.0), published by ONC on 1/30/2015, called for the creation of "a single coordinated governance process." The Open Interoperability Consortium is an answer to that appeal.

Vision: A national system for sharing health data to enable useful and rapid exchange governed, organized and operated by a public and private multi-stakeholder collaboration.

Purpose: To accelerate the creation of a secure information supply chain capable of evolving into a Learning Health System by transparently prioritizing the exchange of critical data aligned to most improve health and reduce cost.

Call to Action: Interoperability must be governed with a commitment to open and unbiased exchange, organized and operated for the public good. Such exchange can and will be conducted by private commercial, private non-profit, and public entities, united to serve the nation. We urge ONC to recognize the importance of diverse stakeholders’ roles in establishing a coordinated governance process, focused on taking action based on shared values and interests that will accelerate meaningful exchange and use of ecosystem data.

Shared Values: To advance our vision, a diverse group of states, organizations, and individuals committed to mission-critical collaboration for HIT, is working together for:

  1) transparent, secure, and ubiquitous exchange and use of health, healthcare, research, and human services data;

  2) creating an accountable, agnostic, interoperable information supply chain with public/private governance and coordination;

  3) supporting delivery & payment system transformation to build the digital infrastructure of a Learning Health System.  

The Power of Narratives: 

Recent discussions keep returning to the importance of shifting the conversation from technical and policy minutiae to the greater question: the purpose of interoperability. Stories communicate the value -- and values -- of HIT-enabled care and wellness in a way that descriptions of technology cannot.

By assembling a small set of shared stories and personas (aka cross-boundary use cases), the Consortium will identify and start to test opportunities for collaborative action in specific domains, based on advancing common requirements illuminated by the stories. 

A series of convening events over the summer and early fall will provide the opportunity for this work. Those include the Stewards of Change 10th Annual Symposium in June, the Medicaid Enterprise Systems Conference in August, and the Strategic HIE Collaborative annual meeting in September. (Others will be scheduled with additional partners' sponsorship.) A late fall “Bretton Woods-style" convening with federal partners & the community will:

1) Review outcomes of use-case cycles and story development from the preceding meetings, to frame and inform the governance process conversation;

2) Make recommendations for next steps in developing a durable, repeatable governance process, including recommendations for a 2016 pilot to test principles for enforcing "common rules of the road"; and

3) Establish a transparent public/private collaboration to facilitate situational awareness, knowledge management, and project coordination of the governance initiative and related activities with partners and collaborators across the HIT ecosystem, using the Roadmap as a common framework.  

The Roadmap is as much about the narrative as it is about the technology. It invites participatory democracy in the collaborative governance and operation of the critical national infrastructure of health (and other) information exchange. To do that, we need to co-create the story of how and why interoperability happens, of how and why interoperability is a cross-boundary, individually empowering, collaborative team event. Collaboration doesn't just "happen," it has to be intentional, and it requires narrative. The Open Interoperability Consortium offers the community a gathering spot for such collaboration to grow. 

How to Become Involved: 

The structure of the Open Interoperability Consortium will continue to evolve, and its process will remain fully transparent. If the Vision, Purpose and Call to Action resonate with you, there are three categories for participation under the "big tent" of the Open Interoperability Consortium:

1) Organizational / Institutional / Association partner;

2) State or federal government partner; and  

3) Individual endorser.

A fourth option is simply to remain a subscriber to this list.

At this point, commitments are informal. The immediate goal is to reach consensus on collaborative action timed to the release of the next iteration of the Roadmap ("Version 1.0 with 'Draft' Removed"). A Coordinating Committee representative of the three categories listed above will help guide and inform the Consortium as we determine its more formal shape and scope. Currently, the Coordinating Committee includes State HIT and SIM leaders, federal partners who are customers of interoperability, the Strategic HIE Collaborative (SHIEC), the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI), the Collaborative Health Network (CHN), the Stewards of Change Institute (SOC), the Learning Health Community (LHC), and the CURE Project. 

You are invited to participate in the Open Interoperability Consortium as a partner, an endorser, or an observer. Please let me know if you have an interest in being part of the Coordinating Committee. As always, please let me know if you wish to be removed from this list or if you have someone to suggest adding.

With regard to myself, to ensure that there is no confusion about my role going forward, I have withdrawn from consulting work with the ONC's Office of Care Transformation and the HIT Resource Center supporting CMS SIM grantees. I remain in private consulting practice. Tuesday, 4/21/15 was my last day on contract at ONC. 

Links to: the deck from my presentation to the HIMSS State Advisory Roundtable on 4/13/15, and an updated version of my "logic model." (That document works best printed 11x17 or on a big screen.)

I look forward to working with you all to advance the vision of the Consortium.