Availity Clinical Solutions Principal Honored by HL7 Da Vinci Project

Susan Bellile, Principal of Availity Clinical Solutions, was among eight industry leaders named a 2022 Community Champion by the Health Level Seven® International (HL7®) Da Vinci Project, a collaborative multi-stakeholder effort including health plans, hospital systems, accountable care organizations (ACOs) and technology vendors.

According to the announcement, the peer-nominated award recognizes innovative leaders in health IT who are helping to advance interoperability within the industry and “display the unique traits of ‘industry above self, a passion for making the healthcare system work better, supporting others, and promoting change.’”

Bellile is a seasoned health IT professional with deep expertise in clinical data, interoperability, and regulations governing data standardization. She has been a champion and advocate for standards designed to improve the electronic exchange of healthcare data and drive interoperability across the industry.

For example, at the HIMSS23 Interoperability Showcase this year, Bellile, on behalf of Availity, co-presented a collaborative initiative with Humana and athenahealth to develop an end-to-end prior authorization process that leveraged the Da Vinci Burden Reduction implementation guides.

The goals of this collaboration were to:

• Improve transparency into the prior authorization process;
• Reduce the administrative burdens for both the health plan and its provider network;
• Accelerate the process through automation.

“I’m proud to receive this recognition from the HL7® Da Vinci Project,” Bellile said. “Availity’s long-standing support of and advocacy for national standards, including HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), is based on our belief that normalizing data requirements, collaborating on exchange standards, and promoting widespread adoption of such standards will lead to a significant reduction in administrative burdens, reduce the cost of care, and improve outcomes for patients.”

As the nation’s largest real-time health information network, Availity processes more than 12 billion electronic transactions a year across thousands of payers and millions of providers. Additionally, Availity has served as an active collaborator with industry organizations, including the HL7® Da Vinci Project, the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI), ASC X12, and the Cooperative Exchange to advance standards in data usability and exchange.

Availity’s products and services are designed to acquire, enrich, and exchange clinical, administrative,
and financial data. Providing bi-directional intelligence that is automated and compliant with national standards allows for streamlined workflows for broad-scale applications.

“On behalf of the HL7® Da Vinci Project, our Steering Committee and members, it is our pleasure to recognize the 2022 Da Vinci Community Champions. A FHIR accelerator’s greatest strength are the people partnering with us to solve today’s interoperability challenges,” said Kirk Anderson, Chair of the HL7 Da Vinci Project Steering Committee and vice president and chief technology officer at Cambia Health Solutions. “The Da Vinci Community Champions help cultivate transformational change through collaboration between payers, providers and vendors and a shared vision of improving health care data exchange. Each individual was nominated by their peers based on their daily applied effort, exemplary achievements and unique contributions to the Da Vinci Project in 2022. We are honored to have the support of community members who share our goals, and to encourage and inspire others to join us on this journey to improve the delivery of care using FHIR APIs.”