InteropNow! at ViVE Podcast

Healthcare organizations are under increasing pressure to make better use of data, AI, and automation but none of those technologies can reach their full potential without reliable access to the right patient information. In this episode of Interop Now, host Sandy Vance chats with Dima Goncharov, co-founder & CEO of Metriport, about the evolving healthcare interoperability landscape, health information exchanges, FHIR, QHINs, and the challenge of bringing fragmented clinical data together. They discuss why interoperability is becoming table stakes in modern healthcare, the limits of building connections in-house, and how a stronger data foundation can help providers move from simply exchanging information to using it to improve care. They also explore how AI and large language models answer complex patient questions in real time when the underlying data is trustworthy, accessible, and properly organized. In this episode, they talk about: Why healthcare interoperability continues to evolve and why connecting to a single network still isn't enough to create a complete patient picture. How health information exchanges, national networks, and emerging frameworks such as TEFCA fit into today's interoperability landscape. Why healthcare data transformation, patient matching, record location, and deduplication remain major challenges even after connectivity is established. Why Metriport believes interoperability should be treated as table-stakes infrastructure, rather than a project healthcare organizations have to continually build and maintain themselves. How clean, accessible longitudinal patient data creates the foundation for AI, automation, and modern care models. Why AI and LLMs could help providers synthesize complicated healthcare data and answer patient-specific questions in real time. Real-world examples of interoperability helping providers surface previously unavailable information, avoid unnecessary testing, and make faster treatment decisions. A Little About Dima: Dima Goncharov is the Co-Founder and CEO of Metriport, an open-source platform transforming healthcare data exchange. With a background as a software engineer, Dima has built everything from aerospace and defense mission systems to highly available cloud database services at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Dima’s passion for transparent, secure, and accessible health data solutions is evident in Metriport’s mission and the APIs they’ve developed for seamless medical record retrieval. Dima is an alumnus of both British Columbia Institute of Technology and of Y Combinator’s S22 cohort. Now based in San Francisco, he leads Metriport’s efforts to modernize and open up healthcare interoperability for providers everywhere.

In this episode, host Sandy Vance chats with Timothy Bennett, the Director of Strategic Healthcare Initiatives at Drummond Group, LLC, for his second appearance on the show. With nearly 20 years at Drummond and deep roots in ONC certification testing dating back to 2010, Tim brings a rare long-view perspective to one of the most important questions facing healthcare interoperability today: how do you actually test whether FHIR works at scale in the real world, not just in a proof-of-concept connectathon? This episode introduces FHIRplace, Drummond's new community-driven testing ecosystem, and digs into why business process rules, not just technical standards, are the real challenge standing between FHIR's promise and its production reality. In this episode, they talk about: FHIRplace brings together providers, payers, technology vendors, and intermediaries to test FHIR implementations at real-world scale Testing conformance to a standard is not the same as proving true interoperability between systems Business process rules, like what documentation a health plan requires for prior authorization, sit outside the technical standards but are critical to real-world success Intermediaries are central to FHIRplace's testing model because point-to-point FHIR exchange is not feasible across millions of providers and thousands of health plans FHIRplace captures raw transaction data flowing through intermediaries to evaluate real-world interoperability issues, not just lab conditions HIPAA currently requires X12 for prior authorization, meaning a full replacement by FHIR will take years and likely result in a long-term hybrid approach FHIRplace plans to integrate with conformance tools like Inferno so members can get interoperability testing and standards validation in one place Drummond intends FHIRplace to be a 20-year testing ecosystem, not a short-term solution built around a single regulatory deadline A Little About Timothy: Timothy Bennett serves as Drummond’s Director of Strategic Healthcare Initiatives and leads the development of new testing and certification programs to benefit the national healthcare interoperability strategy. As the former director of the firm’s ONC Accredited Test Lab (ATL), he has been involved in testing electronic health records (EHR) systems since the ONC program's inception in September 2010 and has additionally served as the test lab’s lead technical adviser. Prior to healthcare compliance testing, Timothy facilitated numerous interoperability test programs, specifically the design of secure and private exchange of documents and information using internet and security standards. With a degree in nuclear engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, he has been instrumental in developing, architecting, and testing software systems for more than 30 years. Timothy is a governing board member of Shift, a task force of industry stakeholders working through the barriers of equitable interoperability by addressing the obstacles of privatized patient health data exchange. He is actively developing testing and certification protocols for the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard in order to provide the market with comprehensive FHIR certification across the healthcare ecosystem. He also actively collaborates with industry leaders in the areas of testing and certifying healthcare compliance of pediatrics, patient safety and usability, FHIR and public health. Finally, Timothy was the principal author of the OASIS AS4 standard, a profile of the ebXML Messaging Services v3.0 specification for secure and private exchange of data using web services.

In this episode of the Interop Now at Vibe series on The Beat Podcast, host Sandy Vance sits down with Joe Graw, Chief Growth Officer at ImageTrend, for a fascinating and deeply personal conversation about the data gap that exists between the ambulance and the emergency department. Joe has been at ImageTrend for nearly 25 years and brings both an engineer's precision and a genuine personal mission to a topic most health system leaders have never fully considered. With 70 million EMS encounters in ImageTrend's network annually and one in three ED patients arriving via EMS, the pre-hospital data source is too important to ignore. From an automated patient-matching algorithm to transport-pattern analytics that signal demand shifts before hospitals feel them operationally, this episode makes a compelling case that EMS data is the earliest and most underutilized demand signal in all of healthcare. In this episode, they talk about: One in three patients arriving in the emergency department comes from EMS, making pre-hospital data one of the most important upstream data sources in healthcare ImageTrend processes nearly 70 million EMS activations annually across its network The NEMSIS standard is used by 100% of EMS and fire departments that treat patients, making it a universal foundation for pre-hospital interoperability Most EMS to hospital data transfer still happens via PDFs, faxes, face sheets, or portal logins, none of which are usable at the point of care ImageTrend's proprietary patient matching algorithm eliminates the need for deterministic fields like MRN numbers, removing a major workflow barrier for paramedics EMS transport patterns are the earliest demand signal in healthcare, revealing referral leakage, access issues, and capacity problems before hospitals feel them operationally Virginia-based health care organization Carilion Clinic is automating 20,000 EMS transports annually into their EHR using ImageTrend, with outcomes data flowing back to EMS agencies to close the quality loop Health systems that treat EMS agencies as strategic data partners rather than just transport services are better positioned to keep care close to home A Little About Joe: Joe’s passion to learn and explore new ideas in the industry is about more than managing the growth of ImageTrend – it’s forward thinking. Engaging in many facets of ImageTrend is part of what drives Joe. He is dedicated to our community, clients, and their use of data to drive results, implement change, and drive improvement in their industries.

In this episode of the Interop Now at Vibe series on The Beat Podcast, host Sandy Vance sits down with Niall O'Neill, Chief Product Officer at Oneview Healthcare, for a warm and insightful conversation about what it actually means to transform the inpatient experience through technology. Niall shares the origin story of Oneview, from winning their first US contract against entrenched incumbents at UCSF's Mission Bay Hospital to the launch of Ovie, a digital care assistant that is redefining how patients, families, and care teams connect inside a hospital room. From meal ordering to nurse escalation triage to natural language conversations about care plans, this episode paints a vivid picture of what a truly connected patient room looks and feels like and why the language we use to describe it matters more than most people realize. (Below is the paragraph submitted with the episode) This episode reframes the idea of the “smart patient room” by introducing the Connected Patient Room – not as a product or trend, but as a way to think more clearly about how care actually happens in and around the room. We’ll explore how a digital Care Assistant - Ovie - brings that model to life by connecting patients, families, and care teams through shared, real‑time context. Episode Highlights: Oneview beat major incumbents to win their first US contract at UCSF Mission Bay in 2014, and the market is only now catching up to that original vision McKinsey found that a third of a nurse's day could realistically be saved through technology optimization and delegation Over 80% of patients with access to the Oneview system actively use it, and two-thirds use it beyond entertainment In 2025 alone, over 780,000 meals were ordered through Oneview's patient room tablets and TVs Ovie is the digital care assistant that serves as the brain of the connected patient room, with access to EHR data, care schedules, precautions, and patient interactions Ovie Voice handles natural language questions from patients and families, knowing when to answer and when to escalate to a nurse with full context Ovie Console gives nurses a real-time view of patient interactions embedded directly inside Epic The connected patient room is not about technology first; it is about five capabilities: monitoring, anticipating, connecting, personalizing, and orchestrating CIOs should define the capabilities they need before selecting vendors, not the other way around A Little About Niall: Niall O’Neill is Chief Product Officer at Oneview Healthcare, where he leads product innovation and AI transformation. Previously, as Chief Customer Officer, Niall has played a pivotal role in shaping Oneview’s growth through a blend of customer-centric leadership and technical insight. Before joining Oneview, Niall held consulting roles at Accenture and Deloitte. He holds a BA in English Studies and an MSc in Multimedia Systems.

In this episode of the InteropNow! at ViVe series on The Beat Podcast, host Sandy Vance sits down with Ray Sabourin, Healthcare Vertical Subject Matter Expert at Ericsson, for a fascinating and surprisingly accessible conversation about the connectivity infrastructure that will determine whether healthcare's AI ambitions actually succeed. Ray has spent 30 years in wireless technology and brings a clear-eyed, no-hype perspective to a topic most CIOs have not fully thought through yet. From autonomous vehicles in mines to HoloLens in operating theaters in Singapore to the simple frustration of losing a call in a hospital elevator, this episode makes the case that 5G is not a luxury upgrade for healthcare. It is the foundation that everything else depends on. In this episode, they talk about: Ericsson powers roughly half the world's cellular infrastructure and is now bringing enterprise-grade 5G directly to hospitals Wi-Fi was built for location-based general use; 5G is built for mission-critical, mobile, clinical performance Hospitals can now own their own private 5G network using CBRS spectrum without relying on carriers Private 5G is far more secure than Wi-Fi because SIM-based encryption protects both the device and the network simultaneously The neutral host approach, bringing the carrier signal indoors via distributed radio rather than a distributed antenna, is the recommended first step Cleveland Clinic and Tampa General are among the early US health systems building out private 5G infrastructure Deploying AI at scale in healthcare requires infrastructure that can handle massive, continuous data collection from sensors, cameras, and devices AI is a Ferrari on a gravel road: buying cutting-edge AI tools without upgrading connectivity infrastructure is a recipe for poor performance Physical AI, including autonomous nurse carts and hospital robots, is already on the horizon and requires mobile, seamless connectivity that Wi-Fi simply cannot guarantee A Little About Ray: Ray Sabourin is a healthcare technology strategist focused on helping hospitals and large health systems design wireless environments that can support the next decade of digital care delivery. At Ericsson, Ray works closely with provider organizations at the intersection of IT, clinical operations, and infrastructure to improve reliability, reduce operational risk, and prepare for AI‑driven workflows. Ray’s background spans wireless infrastructure, healthcare operations, and large‑scale digital transformation in complex clinical environments. His work centers on helping health systems move from “good enough” connectivity to must‑not‑fail wireless performance that clinicians and care teams can depend on.