Google Cloud unveiled a new program Nov. 30 to help payers, providers and healthcare organizations prepare for the federal government's upcoming interoperability regulations.
Five things to know:
1. The Google Cloud Healthcare Interoperability Readiness Program will help organizations navigate changes and better prepare for HHS' new interoperability rules, which were issued by CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
2. The rules, which were finalized in March, aim to give patients secure and free access to their health data through standardized application programming interface requirements applied to smartphone app development.
3. Program participants will have access to Google Cloud's Health APIx Accelerator, which offers pre-built templates and lessons learned from the tech giant's customer and partner implementations. The tool serves as a blueprint for app developers to build Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources and API-based digital experiences.
4. The program also includes management tools for API security as well as the Google Cloud Healthcare API, which enables secure methods for ingesting and storing data in the latest FHIR formats.
5. The program also offers an interoperability toolkit, which includes implementation guides and other resources for data sharing and app development.