EXPLORING HEALTHCARE INTEROPERABILITY

In this episode: Imran Qureshi (b.well Connected Health) FHIRside chat with Diego Kaminker (Health Level Seven International) and Daniel Vreeman (Health Level Seven International) recorded live at DevDays 2026.

Rachel is a globally recognized leader in health data standards, interoperability, and digital health policy. She previously served as CEO of openEHR International, driving worldwide engagement to advance open, interoperable health data. Her career focuses on international collaboration and translating standards into practical implementation.
Ewout Kramer: Firely FHIR Evangelist
Ewout is one of the initiators and a long-standing expert of HL7 FHIR, the modern standard central to healthcare interoperability worldwide. With decades of experience in healthcare IT, he played a key role in designing and documenting FHIR. As Firely's CTO, he focuses on turning these standards into practical solutions for widespread organizational adoption.
Ward Weistra: Firely Product Manager
Ward brings significant experience in business analysis and project management, having delivered services to top pharmaceutical companies and international research projects. He previously held a leading role at The Hyve, an open-source software services company, and holds a Master of Science in Bioinformatics

In this episode we have 3 guests:
Sam Schifman - Chief Innovation Architect for Healthcare, Vantiq
Sam Schifman is a seasoned software architect with deep expertise across industries including healthcare, finance, education, and cybersecurity. He entered Healthcare IT in 2019 as Chief Architect at Diameter Health, where he focused on unlocking clinical data for government agencies, insurers, and Health Information Exchanges. A longtime advocate for responsible AI, Sam has worked with HL7 on AI standards, explored NLP and GenAI in clinical contexts, and frequently shares his insights as a speaker and guest lecturer at institutions like Harvard and conferences such as HIMSS. Now at Vantiq, he’s focused on how Adaptive Automation / Agentic AI will empower the future of healthcare and improve outcomes for all.

Carol Macumber - Chair Elect, HL7 International
Carol Macumber is an Executive Vice President leading Client Services at Clinical Architecture. Carol was an elected member of the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO, now SNOMED International) Technical Committee, is Chair-Elect of the HL7 Board of Directors, co-chair of the HL7 Terminology Services Management Group and the HL7 Terminology Infrastructure Work Group and a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA).

Benji Graham - FHIR Evangelist, Bellese Technologies
Benji Graham - FHIR Evangelist, Bellese Technologies FHIR Evangelist. Health Data Interoperability Leader. HL7 Certified Educator. Benji has a passion for standards improvement, process simplification, and thought leadership. He wants to be a part of the community that makes healthcare in the US truly interoperable.

Carl Leitner is a Technical Officer at the World Health Organization in Geneva. He used to be the Technical Director of Digital Square at PATH and the Associate Director of Health Workforce Informatics at IntraHealth.
With over 20 years of experience in informatics, IT, software development, and education, Carl has spent more than 14 of those years adapting and designing health information systems for low- and middle-income countries.
He has worked closely with many global digital health tools and regularly collaborates with organizations that develop health informatics standards, even co-authoring several of them himself.

Welcome to Episode 24 of Exploring Healthcare Interoperability. Today we’re joined by Chuck Jaffe, CEO of Health Level Seven International (HL7), a key figure in advancing global healthcare standards.
Chuck shares insights into the current challenges and future opportunities for interoperability, the evolving role of the FHIR standard, and HL7’s strategic vision for healthcare innovation.
Join us to discover how global standards are shaping the future of patient care.