As we look to 2025, we anticipate a significant year for identifying barriers and tallying wins in the interoperability community. To quote Micky Tripathi, Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and Acting Chief AI Officer at HHS, “The ceiling keeps rising on this, as it should.”
We anticipate the biggest movement will center around trust, AI, patient access, data quality, and the marketplace’s evolution. Here’s what our team predicts in the coming year for healthcare interoperability.
Continuation of Trust with a Capital T
Trust remains a cornerstone of interoperability, but the road ahead is complex. In 2025, trust will increasingly revolve around understanding the origin and use of data. Stakeholders need transparency about where data originates, who accesses it, how it is processed, and where it’s applied. We’re already seeing this in some parts of health tech innovation, with the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) unveiling at HLTH 2024 a health AI “nutrition label” that delivers insights into AI model generation, limitations, and risk.
Prediction: This duality — hope and hesitation — will define how trust evolves. While frameworks will attempt to build transparency, skepticism will remain a natural reaction, especially for groundbreaking technologies. With a new administration on the horizon, working together to define and maintain trust in interoperability in the years ahead is essential for the success of this important work.
AI in Healthcare: Opportunity or Risk?
AI is at an inflection point. It’s everywhere, yet its promise is tempered by uncertainty and also closely tied to trust. The healthcare industry reflects this tension:
- Opportunities: AI could revolutionize everything from patient care to operational efficiencies.
- Risks: Concerns around data privacy, misuse, and regulatory clarity linger. For example, current processes, like lengthy RFPs with exhaustive AI sections, highlight that buyers are both intrigued and cautious. Additionally, as AI becomes pervasive, scrutiny will rise. Users and organizations will demand clarity on AI models, their training data, and the biases they may inherit.
Prediction: AI adoption into products will advance faster than regulation. Still, we expect much of AI’s application in healthcare to remain focused around operational flows with clinical support remaining limited. The debate over AI’s opportunities versus risks won’t be resolved next year. Instead, we as a community will need to forge ahead with defining governance, transparency, and frameworks. Comprehensive solutions are still a long-term goal, and we may not realize significant traction until 2026 and beyond.
Positive Movement in Patient Access
Efforts to enhance patient access to data are making strides. We are seeing more of our members committed to enabling responses to patient access queries. For example, by mid-2025, we expect more significant momentum, with both an increase in organizations offering streamlined patient data access and greater collaboration between stakeholders to expand interoperability frameworks like FHIR®.
Prediction: While challenges persist, 2025 will see measurable progress in empowering patients with their own health data and reducing friction to access their data, fostering the essential patient-provider relationship.
Awareness and Discussion Around Data Quality
Data quality is a critical component of interoperability, yet it remains a pervasive challenge. In 2025, we will see an increased focus on fostering awareness:
- Data usability: Stakeholders will demand tools that go beyond data exchange to ensure normalization, standardization, consistency, and actionable insights.
- Data application: While data will be more accessible, we should also ensure that this accessibility is balanced with privacy and security, particularly given the uncertainty around reproductive health access and support.
Prediction: 2025 will lay the groundwork for future progress through heightened awareness and incremental steps. Groups like the Data Usability Taking Root Movement have been advocating for incremental steps and education and will continue into 2025.
A Shift Toward Value in the Marketplace
As interoperability plumbing becomes more ubiquitous, the marketplace will shift toward delivering value and services on top of basic connectivity. Organizations will seek tools that analyze, normalize, and contextualize data for actionable insights and bridge gaps between payers, providers, and patients. This maturation of the marketplace will drive innovation and refine priorities for stakeholders.
Prediction: Expect significant movement toward platforms and services that synthesize data into information, enhancing decision-making across the ecosystem.
Momentum in FHIR Adoption
FHIR continues to solidify its place as the backbone of interoperability. In 2025, advancements in FHIR-based solutions will drive efficiency and integration, supported by collaborations between key industry players. We’re already seeing traction here. For example, b.well Connected Health very recently demonstrated how they leveraged CommonWell as their QHIN™ to query for a patient’s data using the Individual Access Services (IAS) use case. They leveraged the FHIR standard to retrieve data from the patient’s medical record at their Epic hospital and put it in the patient’s hands.
Prediction: FHIR will see steady adoption and adaptation, reinforcing its status as a critical enabler of seamless data exchange. We expect to see the need for automated, scalable exchange take the driver’s seat in an effort to reduce manual burden that currently exists in FHIR implementations.
QHIN Shake-Up
The QHIN landscape will undergo a “make or break” year in 2025. New entrants, such as payers, may step into the QHIN ecosystem, seeking a seat at the table and influencing the framework’s future direction. We may even see shifting players and possibly QHIN(s) exiting the space if their business strategy no longer aligns with the direction of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement™ (TEFCA™).
Prediction: This shake-up will reflect the broader rationalization of the interoperability market, one where services in addition to connectivity are key, pushing organizations to align with value-driven models.
Impact of a New Administration
Interoperability has been historically bipartisan, but changes in administration often shift priorities. With a new administration in the White House in 2025, it’s possible we’ll see delays in achieving large-scale objectives and a shift in regulatory focus. For instance, the adoption of TEFCA’s broader use cases, such as healthcare operations, may see slowed progress. At the same time, policies around AI governance, payment operations, and data-sharing mandates may be revisited or deprioritized.
Prediction: This period of uncertainty will require stakeholders to adapt swiftly to evolving directives and ongoing engagement from the interoperability community to maintain priority work. If a decrease in federal priority occurs, it will be up to the interoperability community to pick up the slack and continue to drive important focus areas forward.
Preparing for a Year of Transitions
The themes we outlined above will play a big role in 2025. While the new year may not bring the realization of sweeping resolutions (do they ever?), it will be a critical period for building momentum, fostering dialogue, and continuing to lay the foundation for bigger, transformative changes. Either way, expect 2025 to be both a year of incremental progress and a proving ground for the future of interoperability.