In the beginning of 2026, HL7 appointed Rachel Dunscombe as its new CEO, succeeding Charles Jaffe, M.D., Ph.D., who led the interoperability group for practically 20 years. On Might 12, Dunscombe delivered the keynote deal with to the WEDI spring convention, describing how HL7’s work was aligning with fast-moving coverage modifications in Washington, D.C.
Earlier than becoming a member of HL7, Dunscombe served as CEO of openEHR Worldwide, the place she led international adoption of open well being knowledge requirements and strengthened partnerships with governments, requirements our bodies, and healthcare organizations worldwide. OpenEHR is a nonprofit group that publishes technical requirements for an EHR platform, together with area‑developed scientific fashions to outline content material. She’s additionally held positions throughout the UK well being and know-how panorama, together with main the NHS Digital Academy, serving as an advisor to the UK Secretary of Well being and contributing to nationwide coverage by way of the UK Authorities AI Council. As well as, she holds a visiting professorship at Imperial Faculty of London and serves as on the board of administrators for the Digital Well being Society.
Dunscombe mentioned the work of HL7 goes past creating specs. “It’s about what occurs after we’ve created the specification and we have to scale into interoperability. We are able to write requirements, we will make them usable and constant, however how can we use them to scale back burden and enhance outcomes? That’s what I am actually keen on.”
The FHIR accelerators resembling Gravity Challenge, Codex, Vulcan, Helios and others, are how HL7 makes that leap from requirements to real-world implementation.
Dunscombe talked about a number of initiatives from CMS and ONC. “We have got CMS-0057-F, which has created concrete implementation deadlines. We have got prior auth, which is changing into the check case,” she mentioned. “We’ve obtained AI and automation, that are elevating these expectations, and now requirements should show the operational functionality. That is the place all the work that we’re doing issues.”
She mentioned that in prior authorization, transparency is a sport changer. “It actually does pace up the prior authorization and that, in flip, improves healthcare pathways. It improves clinicians expertise. It ensures the time to remedy is shorter, and we’re doing that through the FHIR-based APIs.”
Dunscombe mentioned that in prior authorization, we have to be very particular concerning the causes for denials. “Permitting that to be completed through these applied sciences will actually make issues an terrible lot clearer. We want public prior authorization metrics so we will see what the efficiency is.”
CMS-0057-F, as a rule, Dunscombe mentioned, is about enhancing well being data change and entry to well being information for sufferers, payers and suppliers. “We have to be certain that all of these are concerned, and that’s very a lot what our ethos is for the long run. The long run work is supporting that scaled adoption, and there are a variety of issues that we’re doing at HL7 to make sure that we will help that.”
One, she added, is about decreasing implementation variability. “We’re very a lot aligning with CMS and ASTP on their priorities. We’re making requirements simpler to undertake. We’re actually working laborious at enabling folks to undertake them within the lowest-friction method,” she mentioned.
Dunscombe mentioned HL7 is supporting AI and automation security. “We’re aligning our requirements, making them machine-readable in order that they can be utilized by each people and by the know-how,” she defined. “We’re decreasing burden for suppliers and distributors. The entire focus that we have got for the time being on issues like prior auth is about taking that friction out of the healthcare system. We’re measuring influence, not simply compliance, so we’re the advantages of what we’re really delivering. We have got to have the ability to check issues and ensure that they’re prepared for deployment and real-world use.”
Coinciding with Dunscombe’s discuss at WEDI, HL7 introduced it has been designated a “Pal of the Ecosystem” throughout the CMS Well being Tech Ecosystem. This designation acknowledges HL7’s important function in supporting CMS’s Kill the Clipboard initiative and the broader Well being Know-how Ecosystem undertaking, each of which intention to scale back administrative burden and enhance knowledge entry throughout the U.S. healthcare system.
The CMS Well being Tech Ecosystem is designed to speed up the adoption of recent, requirements‑based mostly applied sciences that permit sufferers, clinicians, and well being programs to change data seamlessly. The initiative focuses on changing handbook, paper‑based mostly, and duplicative processes with interoperable digital options that make well being knowledge simpler to entry, share, and use.
“Our market-driven, consensus-based method to creating open requirements has constructed the inspiration the AI period will run on,” mentioned Daniel Vreeman, D.P.T., HL7’s chief requirements improvement officer, in an announcement. “Initiatives just like the CMS Well being Know-how Ecosystem create the alignment to catalyze breakthrough capabilities for sufferers, clinicians, and innovators throughout the ecosystem.”
