Many of you will have seen the exciting (to me, anyway) announcement that I am joining the team at Health Gorilla! It feels good to be back in the health IT interoperability world, after a bit of a professional break over the summer. The downtime allowed me to do some part-time consulting and spend some quality time with my family. (And my lawnmower, my running shoes, my library card, etc.) All the while, though, I was keeping an eye out for opportunities, which made me realize just how many companies are trying to make a difference in healthcare.  

I initially thought about the next step in my career journey as finding a mutual fit with one of these companies and setting out to further its mission. As I considered Health Gorilla, however, it occurred to me that working there would allow me to have a wider impact on many organizations across healthcare.

Health Gorilla’s mission is to improve outcomes with organized, actionable health data. In my decision-making process I took this a step further, and realized that Health Gorilla would give me the opportunity not only to contribute to better outcomes for individual patients – obviously a worthy goal on its own – but to help enable innovations in how we approach both the delivery and the business of healthcare. Many of our customers are driving this type of innovation, and I’m thrilled to be part of a team dedicated to providing the data access that will fuel their efforts.  I can’t wait to jump in with our customers to help them address the data challenges standing between them and their goals.

I look forward to the role that the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) will play in this process, and I’m excited about its potential to further break down barriers to interoperability. Health Gorilla has submitted notice of its intent to apply for designation as a Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN), and I expect to spend a healthy chunk of my time in the pursuit of that goal. The organizations that achieve designation will have both an opportunity and a heavy responsibility to ensure that the TEFCA exchange ecosystem maintains a high degree of trust and technical performance. I remain proud of the work done by everyone involved in Carequality, but at the same time I look forward to TEFCA’s expansion into use cases that Carequality and its private-sector counterparts have not yet successfully unlocked.

There are many challenges ahead, no doubt, but I look forward to facing them with the amazing team here at Health Gorilla. Together we’ll keep expanding our ability to provide the actionable data that will not only improve outcomes, but contribute to a stronger healthcare ecosystem. 

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