Relationships blossom, ideas are sparked, and problems turn into solutions. The goal of the event was to provide members of the community with a forum through which to connect, learn, and further build the global goods ecosystem. Un-conferencing is a peer-to-peer learning format where the agenda is shaped—and led—by participants. The core tenants of un-conferencing are to be brave, experiment, and follow your passion. After being provided a skeleton agenda on the first day, participants suggested session topics that their peers then voted upon in the room.
Each day centered around one of three themes: standards and interoperability, security and data-privacy, and sustainability. We heard from participants in these areas on what is working and what they are struggling with and began to problem-solve in real time. Open standards provide a common language and set of expectations to help achieve interoperability between systems.
While global goods developers and implementers generally understand the importance of standards, participants shared challenges communicating the value proposition of standards to governments, ministries of health, and donors.
On days 1 and 2, we discussed how to validate and share lessons learned on how standards have been used to solve problems. For example, team members from OpenMRS, an electronic medical record system and global good, shared how they recently reduced their integration time from months to 1. To underscore their commitment to implement FHIR to ensure better interoperability between healthcare systems, they created the OpenMRS FHIR2 module, a freely available implementation guide for those interested in replicating the process.
This experience with OpenMRS is a prime example of the long-term value of standards, and one that can easily be adopted by global goods at minimal cost for maximum benefit. But tomorrow, standards save you money in the costs and risks that you never run into again. Data-privacy and security have long been an essential part of the healthcare system, as patient data is some of the most personal and private information that exists.
