The Helios FHIR Accelerator for Public Health is a collaborative initiative including network organizations (QHIN, HIE, HIN), state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) public health agencies, health information technology (HIT) vendors, federal partners, and private sector organizations. Its primary goal is to align with the widespread standardization and transformation that is happening around digital health data today to promote more flexible and effective data exchange between healthcare, the public and other sectors beyond public health.
Helios addresses ongoing challenges in public health by ensuring that data modernization efforts incorporate market-based solutions and align with nationwide interoperability priorities. The alliance focuses on extending and adopting existing FHIR specifications in ways that are flexible, accurate, scalable, sustainable and responsive. By doing so, Helios aims to keep public health needs at the forefront as FHIR standards evolve and are implemented nationwide.
HIGHLIGHTS
2026 is shaping up to be an exciting year for Helios. In addition to all the great work our Query & Response Priority Area is making on the use of FHIR APIs to support public health use cases, this year has seen some important changes to the Accelerator’s focus areas. We hope that you will be energized and excited by these new and continuing opportunities to improve public health interoperability.
Get Excited for Environmental Health
In coordination with ASTHO’s (Association of State and Territorial Health Officials) Environmental Health Standards Messaging Work Group, Helios will be diving into the environmental health interoperability workspace. Public health programs across the country collect, analyze and act on data relating to the environment in which individuals live, work and play. Unfortunately, not enough work has been done to apply modern standards-based interoperability methods to environmental health workflows, leading to continued reliance on resource intensive processes. Helios has recruited Cliff Mitchell (Maryland), Tim Callahan (Georgia) and Nick Porter (ASTHO) to document existing business processes for a set of use cases and help us explore how FHIR can be applied to ease existing pain points and reduce paper-based workflows.
Help Us Design a FHIR-Capable FHIR Infrastructure
Public health jurisdictions across the country have begun architecting FHIR-based solutions. However, many of them have limited experience in developing the infrastructure necessary to support this new technology. The breadth of public health programs and systems only complicates a unified and comprehensive approach to building a FHIR-enabled infrastructure. Fortunately, the larger FHIR community has extensive experience in implementing FHIR-based solutions, but they may not have a deep understanding of the complexities of public health. This is where Helios can bridge that gap. In 2026, we are exploring the complexities of public health FHIR implementations alongside experienced community implementation experts, leveraging existing knowledge to improve public health interoperability.
Thank You to All of Our Bulk Data and Aggregate Data Partners
As we focus on our exciting new opportunities for 2026, we will be wrapping up activities in two of our original Priority Areas – Bulk Data for Immunizations and Aggregate Data. Helios would like to extend a big thank you to all those who participated in these areas, especially our community leaders Mary Beth Kurilo, Damon Ferlazzo, John Stamm, Sophia Torrance, Hans Buitendijk and Ravi Kafle. The knowledge and products of these Priority Areas will form an important foundation for not only new Helios projects, but efforts by public health to implement FHIR-based solutions in these areas. Thank you again for all your hard work and contributions.
Query & Response Keeps Going Strong
In2026, the Q&R Priority Area continue their critical work in understanding how public health programs can proactively access supplemental patient data held by healthcare providers and other data sources through the use of FHIR APIs. The group is finishing up the publication of the Query & Response white paper balloted last fall and met in June as part of a virtual Helios Connectathon to further explore API usage, TEFCA fan-out queries, task-based queries, public health system client registration, and other important new use cases. On our bi-weekly project team calls, we continue to explore topics related to FHIR queries and to bring your use cases to the table. Please join us!
HOW TO BE PART OF HELIOS
Helios is currently recruiting organizations to actively participate in current discussions, future testing events and piloting efforts. There are no membership fees for participation in Helios, so there are ways for everyone to get involved!
Everyone can participate by:
- Bringing your public health interoperability pain points to us to learn what FHIR can do for you. FHIR offers new possibilities for public health, and we can help you understand how to address your current interoperability needs.
- Applying your FHIR tools to public health use cases at HL7 FHIR Connectathons and other Helios testing events. We need tool developers playing a wide range of roles in public health data exchange to help evaluate FHIR-based approaches and develop technical solutions.
- Talking to your colleagues and technical teams about how to take the next step towards piloting a real-world solution.
If you are ready, willing, and able to help drive forward public health interoperability, please reach out to us at helios@hl7.org to become part of our team!
