HALO from Infoway

Debra Turnbull

HALO is a data standard framework that comes from Canada Health Infoway. It is:

derived from HL7 and FHIR (HL7 is a healthcare data standard; FHIR comes from HL7) {1},
intended for primary care but will work with all EMRs (yes, even hospitals), and
is vendor agnostic (works with different EMRs; from different vendors).
Uses the 'develop once; deploy many' principle,
single sign-on architecture (solves provider portal-itis), and
establishes a common framework.

Its intent is to be:

equitable,
scalable,
set up reusable components (many EMR apps), and
be Plug & Play.

In essence, this allows for the creation of a 'Play/Apps Store' for EMRs. This makes it possible for an EMR app, created in one province, to be integrated into another EMR; in a different province or territory.
B.C. has piloted a BC Patient Summary{2} which is based on the International Patient Summary standard. Ontario has 2 products currently in use: eConsult and eReferral{3}.

Why This Is Important
The apps being developed are meant to decrease clinician workload, and provide patients access to their information. It benefits clinicians, administrators, support staff... and us patients.

REFERENCES

Kim Locke

@Debra-Turnbull Where does PocketHealth and Epic (Charting software/app) fit into this?

Debra Turnbull

@Kim-Locke

Hi Kim,

Epic(1) is a charting software (EMR - electronic medical record application) used in hospitals to gather patient data; for the purpose of patient care. [A director recently informed me that it is also used by one of their public Community Clinics.]

PocketHealth(2) (two brothers from Toronto) is a third-party platform, and application, that stores images in its repository (really big database). It stores images from hospitals/clinics (hospital/clinic must obtain patient consent) for a fee. It then makes the specific image (and sometimes, a summarized report) available for a fee - to the specific patient. Images are stored forever - until the patient makes a request for deletion directly to PocketHealth.

HALO is one part of the Connected Care(3) project proposed by CIHI and Canada Health Infoway(4). I had posted this because I had caught the presentation and was very excited to see a national standard for healthcare interoperability. Remember, health care is delivered at the provincial level. This is the first time that I see the feds getting involved in health data exchange. Later, CIHI held their own presentation; showing how the two pieces would work together.

How will this work for PocketHealth? I have no idea. They, like Epic, are software vendors. It will be up to the hospitals, clinics, and other care delivery organizations, to do their due diligence and vet whether the software they use conforms to the new standards. Understand, though, most software vendors have already been asking for this standardization from the government - so, they should already know this.

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REFERENCES

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HALO from Infoway

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