Episode 39: Moving the PIQI Framework Forward - Spring 2025

In this episode of the Informonster Podcast, Clinical Architecture CEO Charlie Harp hands over the mic to our VP of Marketing, Jaime Lira, for a conversation about the evolution of the PIQI Framework. From its early beginnings as a taxonomy to its growing momentum across the industry, Charlie shares how PIQI has progressed, what’s coming next for the PIQI Alliance, and why standardizing patient data quality is more important than ever. 

• Join the PIQI Alliance or stay up to date with all things PIQI here. 
• Watch Charlie Harp and Ryan Howells, Principal at Leavitt Partners, during ViVE 2025 for their session, Measuring Patient Data Quality with PIQI.
• Read Kill The Clipboard! From Leavitt Partners

Contact Clinical Architecture

• Tweet us at @ClinicalArch
• Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook
• Email us at informonster@clinicalarchitecture.com

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

Charlie Harp (00:09):

Hi, I am Charlie Harp and this is the Informonster podcast, and today on the Informonster podcast in a weird twist of reality, I'm going to turn over the reigns of the Informonster Podcast to my illustrious colleague Jamie Lira, who's going to interview me, yours truly, about what's going on with the PIQI Framework in the PIQI Alliance. Over to you, Jamie.

Jaime Lira (00:32):

Hi everyone. Thanks for having me back, Charlie. So apparently I did not completely bomb when we did our episode a while back about the data quality report.

Charlie Harp (00:42):

Not completely.

Jaime Lira (00:43):

Okay, so I'm back for a second try. Maybe I did and that's why I'm back for a second try. We will see. So today we're here to talk about all things PIQI Framework and there's just been a lot of things going on in the world of PIQI since last summer. Really, I feel like the official PIQI journey actually began with the AMIA webinar that you did last August, or rather maybe the one that proceeded that the year before when you were talking about the Healthcare Data Quality Taxonomy, which kind of led over into that. So I really see that as the first official sighting of the PIQI Framework and the four core principles that make that up. So what I was hoping for today is for you to give everybody a little bit more of an update of what is going on with the PIQI Framework. You've been doing a lot of talks and presentations about it, and I think that it really started picking up steam, I believe it was in December last year when you went to the ONC/ASTP meeting and shared it there. So can you tell our audience a little bit more about what actually occurred at that meeting?

Charlie Harp (01:48):

Sure. So to your point, you're right, August 2023 is when I gave the AMIA webinar on the Healthcare Data Quality Taxonomy. And it was one of those things where it was kind of like a book report. I had something I had to do, I had to give a presentation. I thought, oh, I'll do it on data quality. And it's always funny how these little innocuous things sometimes snowball into something that hopefully turns into something important. So yeah, we did that. We worked with some potential clients on doing some qualitative assessment of the data, which turned into a Data Quality Symposium meeting where I reported my findings through the lens of the data quality taxonomy. And that then kind of took on more speed when we did the assessment for ONC, now ASTP on the lab quality analysis. And so what happened was PIQI was a successive set of aha moments for me.

(02:53):

The first was, Hey, there's no taxonomy for data quality. And then the next thing was, well, actually there's no real ubiquitous way of understanding data quality, patient data quality. And then it turned into, well, we have no sanctioned authority to say this is usable data or not usable. And that all kind of snowballed into the PIQI Framework. And last year at the ONC meeting, I was asked to give a presentation with a handful of others where I presented kind of the concept of the PIQI Framework. And by then we'd started working with Levitt Partners and I'd been talking to people like Jonathan Nebeker and Keith Campbell and a host of others on whether or not it made sense to take something like PIQI and put it in the public domain. And I have to say that I'm a product guy. I've built products my whole career.

(03:48):

I've done work with standards, but I've never been really a working group or part of the standards community. Some of my dearest friends are, but I've never really done that. So this is all new for me, but what I love about PIQI and what I love about the response to PIQI has been people get it, people understand why we need it. Some people have been doing it or doing something similar to it for years, but this is really the first initiative where we're getting a bunch of people in a room together and we're kind of agreeing this is how we're going to do it. And I'm very humbled and honored to be driving it. And like I said, it was this thing that was, oh, I got to do a presentation. I'll try to come up with something interesting. And I started talking about data quality and Lord Kelvin, and that has kind of turned into something that honestly would be an incredible moment for me if I actually am part of something. This is how the HL7 people must feel all the time where I feel like or Graham Grieve or some of these, or people like Stan Huff or Keith Campbell, these people that have done these contributions. Now I'm not comparing myself to them by any means, but this feeling that it'd be really cool if I could say that myself and Clinical A rchitecture were part of doing something that helped make things better.

Jaime Lira (05:11):

So I wasn't there at the ASTP meeting in December to hear your presentation, but I have heard it numerous times. I may or may not actually hear it in my sleep. However, this is one thing I can tell you from a marketing standpoint. So anyone who's listening might really appreciate this. If you like to geek out on data, which who doesn't, I was here in the office at the time that you were given that presentation. And we do have a website set up PIQIFramework.org that has a lot of information about PIQI and how it's designed and what it can do. And one of the features on the website is to sign up to either participate in the PIQI Alliance work group or just be kept in about all things PIQI as we move forward. And the thing that I noticed, I knew something was up, I knew your presentation was occurring because my inbox was flooded with people submitting that form on the website saying, I want to participate in this, I want to know more about this.

(06:14):

Please keep me in the loop. And it was just really funny as that was happening because I was doing my regular work and then my inbox just kept pinging. And it was just really exciting from a marketing standpoint to see that we're sharing some information with people, it is clearly hitting a note with them. They're going to the website, they're seeing what we want to show them, and they just feel motivated to want to be a part of this. So I personally thought that was pretty cool from a marketing data standpoint that the message that you're sharing is definitely getting out there to the right people who want to participate in this. So I just wanted to share that. I thought that was pretty cool.

Charlie Harp (06:50):

I thought it was really cool. And honestly, the reaction that I got when I was giving that presentation was very positive. It was kind of an emotional moment for me too, because the thing that I think sometimes people don't realize in healthcare, you have all manner of people that get involved in healthcare from the clinical folks that actually do it every day for a living, the IT folks that work for organizations that are in the trenches of healthcare, the vendors, the standards people, private equity people, all these people are kind of involved in this healthcare ecosystem. And one of the things that I've always tried to impress upon people, whether it's at AMIA in my role at the IPC or whether it's talking to people at HIMSS or talking to people in these organizations is just because I'm a vendor doesn't mean that I don't really care about healthcare.

(07:52):

It's not just about money for me. And I think that's true of a lot of people. I know so many people in healthcare that have worked for vendors or they work for places like the VA or FDA or any of these places, and it's not just a job for them. It's not just about the money for them, it's about something much bigger. And I remember when I was giving the presentation, I was sitting there talking about the fact that we decided not to make a product. We decided to make a difference when it came to PIQI. That was always kind of true of clinical architecture, whether we put something out as an open standard or whether we build a product. Ultimately our goal is not just to rake in the money. Our goal is to do something that improves the ability for people to do their job in healthcare.

(08:41):

And we're not a nonprofit, we're a profit organization ideally, but at the end of the day, we are not just, there are a lot of things I could do with the talented individuals I have at clinical architecture that could generate a lot of revenue, probably a lot easier than working in healthcare. I think that the people that do it and people like me, we do it because we feel the noble purpose of healthcare and we feel like what we do makes a difference. So I just remember in that moment sitting there and thinking to myself, this probably is the right move for us doing this thing in a way that gives it over, which I'm a control freak, so I don't love giving things over to anybody from a control perspective, but making it open, making it a standard and rolling it out was really an opportunity for us to do something that ultimately will benefit us because people are in denial about data quality and hopefully seeing it in a way that is objective will help them realize they have an issue and then they can, whether they get help from Clinical Architecture or they get help from other organizations that are like Clinical Architecture, whether they do it themselves, the end of the day, what we've done by spearheading the PIQI Framework and the PIQI Alliance will make healthcare better.

(10:04):

And I'm excited about that.

Jaime Lira (10:07):

Me too. I think that's really important. I know that after that meeting happened in December rolling into 2025 in February, early February, you actually spoke with the HL7 EHR working group. So they had a webinar that they were basically putting on, and you gave them an intro to the PIQI Framework and talked a little bit more about what it is, what it does. And I actually was present for that one, so I got to sit in on that webinar and hear your presentation again. So PIQI has burned into my mind at this point, which is a great thing, maybe or maybe not. I could answer some questions about it. I think I could. But I think that even that group was asking you some really thoughtful questions about what PIQI actually is and how would it really work and how is it really going to impact change? And I just felt like that conversation was really good because these are the people that are in the trenches actually working with the data. And so I really value hearing their feedback about this. It means a little bit more to me when I hear them talk about that.

Charlie Harp (11:07):

Yeah, me too. And the thing that I've talked to a lot of folks since we started this journey, and the thing that I acknowledge is it's not like I came out of a cave and invented patient data quality. It's always been there. And people in these different areas across CMS in hospitals and in research organizations, these clearing houses, they've been doing data quality assessment on the data. I mean, it's not, at the end of the day, it's not rocket science. Being able to look at something and assess whether it's there, whether it's right. So people have been doing this work, whether they're in the OMOP community or doing it in their own proprietary environments. So part of it, I talk to those people, I get this sense of what you're doing is not that special. I've been doing that for years, and I acknowledge that what's special about PIQI isn't that I came up with, it's not cold fusion.

(12:06):

I didn't invent something amazing. What I realized when I was coming up with this whole idea of PIQI is that we needed a way we agree on, all of us agree on, and we need a way where regardless of what format we're doing, what schema the data's in, that we can lift the data into a format and assess it using a set of rules that we can all agree on. So the real difference in PIQI is that it's the community of practice part of it. So even if clinical architecture just spun it up as a product and that's all it was, it would just be another way of looking at quality just like everybody else has. What makes PIQI important is if we adopt it as something that we can all agree on. The other thing that was interesting about that HL7 meeting, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way, but it's funny that people have been fighting this battle for so long. Some of the pushback I got back was, no one's going to care about this. Do you remember that?

Jaime Lira (13:05):

Yes.

Charlie Harp (13:05):

And for me, I'm an optimist by nature, and so typically I'm like, well, yeah, but they said, "Well, Charlie, nobody cares about the data they send out. They just care about the data they get." My pushback on that is, and I can believe me, I can understand why people might be a little jaded. My pushback is that the problem is we don't have a standard way of telling them that their data is not good or is good. And so maybe they don't care because they don't know. It's kind of like, what was that old commercial for mouthwash, whatever? Only your best friend will tell you. I mean, maybe

Jaime Lira (13:43):

Comparing data quality.

Charlie Harp (13:44):

Maybe what we need to do is we need people to be aware of it because I think a lot of organizations, if they're aware that they're not a good part of the community, that there's going to be some inherent social pressure that's going to make 'em say, well, let me see if I can do better. And the cool thing about PIQI is because of the way it measures quality and doesn't just say your data's bad, it also gives you insight to say how you can do better, because that's what you do in a community. You don't just say, Hey, you're not doing well. You try to come up with ways to help that person or help that organization see what steps they can take to get to where they need to be. And so all of these communities that I've talked to, I've talked to the HL7 community, I've talked to people at different payer organizations, we've been engaging with these betas right now, we've been really focused in interoperability space. There's so much experience and knowledge out there. And it's the other thing I was really excited about, the idea of the PIQI Alliance is that I'm not a dumb guy, but there's a lot of really, really smart people out there who've been tilting at this data quality windmill for decades. And the idea of getting them all together and getting all their insights and making this better is super exciting for me, and I've really appreciated all the interactions I've had around this over the last year and a half.

Jaime Lira (15:13):

Yeah, I think it's been really good. So we moved on from that HL7 meeting actually happened right before the crazy spring conference session. So we went to ViVE in a little bit later on in February. You were actually presenting with Ryan Howells on the interop stage there, and I think the title of that presentation was actually just Measuring Patient Data Quality with PIQI. And so you had an opportunity then to get that larger audience. I think that there's typically about, I think they say about 10,000 people attend ViVE every year. So we were right there in the interop pavilion. You had a good 30 minutes to share that information with the crowd, and I did feel like there was a decent amount of traffic that was there for your presentation, and even also came by our booth a little bit later on to talk a little bit more specifically about that. So what was your take on the interactions that you had there at ViVE?

Charlie Harp (16:07):

I mean, I thought they were great. I think that it's interesting whether it was ViVE or HIMSS, which seemed like it happened right after ViVE, it did. When you interact with most people about this, especially people who understand the nature of the problem, it's kind of the relief you hear when they're like, somebody's actually working on this. Or they're thinking about, well, I've already kind of built some things around this. And there's a lot of curiosity, a lot of questions, a lot of people trying to understand what's the open source part of it and what's the open standard part of it and what's the proprietary thing that Clinical Architecture is building? So there was a lot of great interactions there. It's like anything else. I mean, I have interactions as part of what we've been doing with these calls with a PIQI Alliance. I'm having interactions with people all the time. And what's funny is a lot of people don't realize they'll ask me a question about PIQI and can it do X and can it do this? And in some cases, people try to push the boundaries of what PIQI is meant to be. There are people that I could tell they really want PIQI to be decision support, clinical decision support engine.

(17:25):

And I'm like, I push back on that. But every now and then people ask me a question and I'll think to myself, that's a really good idea. We definitely should do that. And there's already features in PIQI that have been added throughout the course of these conversations where I would be having a conversation with somebody and say, well, can PIQI do this? And I'm thinking, well, not right now. It can't. But I think that having more of those conversations and also having conversations that push the boundary of PIQI, for example, the original PIQI format was just patient clinical data. And I've had enough conversations with people where they're like, well, but what if I want to do claims data? What if I want to do public health data? What if I want to do data for social care? And so the idea we completely broke the PIQI Framework as a concept because we had a fixed model. Well, we don't have a fixed model anymore. So we've evolved based upon people asking just general questions because they're curious because a lot of it's because they want to use PIQI. And they're kind of asking the question in terms of, well, I wonder if I can use this, Charlie, can it do this?

(18:43):

And so my answer isn't always yes, because sometimes you've got to have a focus to provide value. And if you make something so ambiguous, it no longer delivers the original value. And with PIQI, it is still very focused on patients, whether the patients are members, whether the patient or someone who's being taken care of by a social worker or whether it's somebody we're looking at from the perspective of public health. So we're not doing other types of things with IT yet. We're really focused on patient data. But a lot of those interactions at ViVE and HIMSS are very meaningful. And once again, the level of excitement around this, I've been doing software for data quality and interoperability and this kind of thing for 35 years, and this level of excitement has been really validating.

Jaime Lira (19:39):

Yeah, definitely. So yes, rolling right through ViVE, two weeks later we show up in Vegas for HIMSS. And you actually gave two different presentations at HIMSS. Well, technically three. You started off in the interop and HIE pre-conference where you spoke with Ryan Howells again and Jonathan Nebeker to that group. And I believe that title was specifically strategies for Gradually Enhancing Healthcare Data Quality and Conformance. I wasn't able to make that presentation because I was busy making sure that our booth was being set up properly, but I heard that it was pretty well attended. So do you want to share a little bit about that specific interaction that you had?

Charlie Harp (20:23):

Yeah, I mean, that was also a really good one. Thanks to Ryan and Jonathan for letting me participate in it. And just so you know, since it was part of the pre-conference, I actually had to sneak into that. They wouldn't let me in because I wasn't part of the brief conference, so I had to sneak into a side door to get in there so I could present. But it was another session where there are people that are very thoughtful in healthcare. Ryan is one of those people and the work that he's done with the CARIN Karen Alliance, and he's involved in a lot of different things. And he's a very smart guy and he's a well connected person. And I think he uses his connections for good, and I really appreciate that about Ryan. And Jonathan Nebeker is also a very thoughtful person who cares about the data quality.

(21:14):

He's a very bright guy, and really the way he looks at healthcare data is inspiring to me because when I talk with Jonathan, I always feel like I learned something. And honestly, I always feel like I'm not as smart as Jonathan. So that's just a vibe that I get. I'm like, okay, maybe I'm not smart enough to talk to Jonathan. Hopefully he doesn't hear this because he might agree. But giving that talk, it was also very good because when you're talking about these things, and I've given a lot of presentations in my career when people are nodding and you could see the recognition and you could see that you're definitely hitting on something when you're looking around the room and everybody's nodding when you're talking about these points. And I think that honestly, Jamie, all these talks, they all kind of blur together for me. And you think about PIQI in your sleep, I introduced myself and I started giving a PIQI overview at a dinner party. It's terrifying. But I think that all those talks that I gave, the one with Ryan and Jonathan were great big audience, a lot of nodding. I had to sneak out, so they didn't come after me afterwards. But the other talks that we gave, we gave one in the interoperability area once we figured out where the heck it was.

Jaime Lira (22:32):

Yes,

Charlie Harp (22:32):

We made our way over there. And that one, it was pretty well attended. And we had a few questions, and once again, a lot of people nodding. And overall, the interactions at HIMSS I think were also really good. Our data quality theater, it was busy. We had a lot of great speakers and we had a lot of offline conversations about PIQI and trying to figure out who wanted to be a beta for what we're doing to kind of test it against real world data. But yeah, all good stuff.

Jaime Lira (23:03):

Yeah, definitely. I think it's been exciting to see the amount of people that want to step forward to participate in the beta, to see what does that actually mean. So not only is it scoring that data for them, but then it's also pointing out where the issues are. And I think that that's really the interesting part is it really shows you the value, right? If you only had a score, you could kind of say, okay, who cares? I already knew. I already knew that there was questionable quality here with this data. But the fact that it pinpoints exactly where it's happening, I think that's where I see the light bulb turning on for some people when they're looking at that. So I've enjoyed participating in that aspect of it. When we've talked to people in the betas, one thing that also happened at HIMSS was you had an opportunity to have a face-to-face meeting with a lot of the people from the PIQI Alliance working group. I specifically thought that was really great to see that group get together. I know that you've been talking on phone calls leading up to that, but to see that many people in a room that are that passionate about the topic, I thought that was really exciting.

Charlie Harp (24:10):

Yeah, it was great. There were a lot of hard questions, people trying to figure out what's this guy up to and what are you guys doing? But it was a great group of folks. And the thing is, when you come up with an idea, like with PIQI, I don't mind the hard questions and I think I can answer all the hard questions we might not always agree. One of the questions that came up is, why aren't you using FHIR for PIQI? And I'm a pragmatist. I've been in the trenches for a long, long time, and I appreciate the people that are developing standards and moving things. And the work that Grahame Grieve has done with FHIR is also transformative. He's an inspiration for me. But when I look at the traffic, and this is what I said in the meeting, the question was asked, why didn't you use FHIR?

(25:00):

And in some ways, it's kind of like if you don't use FHIR, you're betraying the FHIR community. And I think FHIR is good, but FHIR is a tool just like everything else. We shouldn't turn FHIR into things that FHIR is not. And when it comes to data quality, I want to measure all the quality, all of it right now today. And if I made everything had to be in FHIR to do that, that would not be possible. And the truth is too, FHIR is a standard, and this is something that was said in the meeting was, well, what version of FHIR should it be if it's going to be FHIR version four, version five? And so the idea of PIQI is it's not about a format, it's not about a message, it's not about a schema. The idea of PIQI is I'm just taking the data out, putting it into a simple flat format as a flat payload of data, and I'm evaluating the data on its own merits, not on the merits of its container. And after we kind of got through it, people got it. They understood it. They didn't understand that because the big fear I think, was that Charlie's creating a new format that bastard's creating a new format. I knew he was up to no good, but in reality, I did the opposite. I said, I'm not going to have a format. I'm just going to have data. And if we need to add more data, we add more data fields. But I mean, it is kind of a format, but it's an un-format format.

(26:29):

But the rest of the conversation was good. People had a lot of good questions. We've had a number of people who have expressed interest in being in the beta, and it's always cool for me. I am a huge data nerd. We did our first beta, and I might be getting ahead of your questions, but we did the first beta. And when you're using synthetic data, it's too symmetrical. The errors are everything's at 20% or whatever. I mean, and you could just tell that that is not real data too symmetrical. When we sent the first kind of cohort of data sources through PIQI into the PIQXL gateway, it was just really cool because you could feel the authenticity of the bad quality if that's the thing. It was like you could say, yeah, I understand that. I understand why the pattern looks like that. That's real. And I think when we show it to people, you can tell who the data nerds are because they get really excited when they see things in this way. And we've had some really good thoughtful feedback as part of that too.

Jaime Lira (27:37):

Definitely. So with regard to the PIQI Alliance, I believe that at this point, like I mentioned, I mean we're close to a hundred people altogether that just want to stay up to date on all things PIQI. About half of those or so are interested in participating in the PIQI Alliance work group. Can you kind of describe a little bit more about what the Alliance is actually doing, what it's up to?

Charlie Harp (28:02):

Yeah. So we're still kind of coalescing the Alliance. The Levitt Partners group is kind of figuring out what the membership stuff is going to look like. We standing up the executive steering committee. I think I get to be part of that. We're kind of coming up with the work groups. We'll probably have work groups that focus on the Framework work groups that focus on the different models, work groups that look at the evaluation profiles that hopefully are be sanctioned by organizations like ASTP. And we're talking about trying to get together probably towards the end of the summer. The PIQI Alliance as a standard PIQI is going to go to ballot I think in January. And HL7, Carol Macumber has been spearheading that for us because more her domain than mine. So the standard stuff is going to be a little bit slower as an informative spec. The open source version of PIQI is going to probably be available sometime in the fall. I'm impatient. And so my goal is to get PIQI out there. And right now today, PIQI is live.

(29:14):

We are processing data through it, we're looking at the statistics. I always say the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. We're experiencing PIQI right now. And honestly, there are some little tweaks here and there to how we present the data. But the ability for PIQI to show where the issues are and to give you insight into how to fix 'em kind of exceeded my expectations to be honest. It's kind of like as a developer, I always said when you build a system, sometimes you experiencing this thing that I call brilliant by mistake. And I think with PIQI, we've come across some things that are kind of like Easter eggs, they're bonuses. We weren't expecting that we could do this, and that's been really exciting. So for me, I'm really pushing the betas I'd really like even as Clinical Architecture, our implementation of PIQI, the PIQXL gateway, we're going to be very aggressive about making it available to people in a way that is affordable and makes sense because establishing PIQI as something that people understand is important to me.

(30:22):

And then as it becomes a standard and as the steering committee starts to tweak its trajectory, we'll stay in lockstep with that. But I don't want to wait until everything's formalized and then say, okay, now let's start measuring. The truth is we can't wait as an industry to measure quality because without us improving the quality of the data, all these other things we're trying to do with AI, with analytics, all of these things are, forgive me for the hyperbola, but they're doomed to failure if we can't understand and improve the quality of the data that we're trying to share across silos.

Jaime Lira (31:00):

Absolutely. And I think probably what we should do then is in a few months, invite Carol Macumber to come back on and talk a little bit more about what the balloting process actually looks like and what it would take to continue those final steps. And then at that point too, we'll probably have some more exciting updates about what is going on with PIQI.

Charlie Harp (31:20):

Yeah, she's in Madrid this week, so whatever punishment you think is appropriate, that's fine.

Jaime Lira (31:25):

She's out there globe trotting. It's fine. We're here holding down the fort. So PIQIFramework.org is the official website of PIQI Framework. There are a lot of resources that are available on that website. One of the resources that I would definitely mention is the fact that the podcast series that you initially created, I believe it was last summer, where you actually walk through each one of the principles of PIQI individually. That's way better to listen to those in short bursts. So that whole series is actually available through PIQIFramework.org so people can listen into that and kind of bring themselves up to speed if they don't want to read through the website. But there are also new resources that we've recently added to the website.

Charlie Harp (32:11):

Yeah, my side job,

Jaime Lira (32:13):

Yes.

Charlie Harp (32:13):

I do for fun in the evening apparently, is I create documentation and you might say to yourself, Charlie, why are you the CEO of Clinical Architecture writing documentation? And that's a really good question. Why am I doing this?

Jaime Lira (32:26):

It is. It's a very good question.

Charlie Harp (32:28):

But it's a labor of love. And so I've been updating the documentation to try to provide guidance because we do have an engineer here at Clinical Architecture who is building the open source, future open source PIQI Framework engine. And what I want to do is she is getting her guidance from the documents that I'm writing. I figure if she can write something based upon my crazy documents, then other people should be able to as well. And so we're constantly updating those. I've got another one that's going to be coming out soon. So we've got the message format guide or the model Guide for the Patient clinical model. We've got the handbook, which is the overall Handbook for PIQI Framework. We've got the SAM Guide and the Evaluation profile guide. They were all updated in early May, and they'll probably continue to be updated because we make improvements. We get feedback from the beta. So I wouldn't have these etched in stone or anything, but we'll continue to make those updates and add new things as they come out.

Jaime Lira (33:37):

Yeah, definitely. So I just wanted to point out for anybody that's listening, that those resources are available there. You can go take a look at those right now. And if you are interested, if you have not already expressed your interest and staying up to date on all things PIQI, feel free to submit your information and then we'll collect that. And as we have updates, we'll communicate that via email. And so I guess the last question I have for you is, what is the future for PIQI?

Charlie Harp (34:05):

Well, the future for PIQI is we're going to finish standing up the PIQI Alliance Community of Practice. We have a bunch of meetings and things coming down the pike, and one of the things that's very interesting is Levitt partners put out a white paper called Kill the Clipboard, go Search that if you want to read it. And they've been working with the current administration on finding ways to improve things in healthcare IT. They've gotten a lot of positive responses from the administration and the folks in HHS, like for example, recently there was an RFI released by CMS and specifically calling out data quality almost in response to what was written about the PIQI Framework in the Kill the Clipboard white paper. And so I'm very optimistic that as we move forward, that PIQI could become a defacto standard for measuring data quality and something that we as an industry can kind of rally around to raise the overall quality of data. And for my part, I'm excited to be a part of it. I'm excited to engage with all these luminaries and smart people in healthcare, and I'm just going to keep doing whatever I can to try to make it a reality. Because I think for me, it's one of those things where if I can tell my ancestors, no, my ancestors, my forebearers, no, my descendants, my descendants,

Jaime Lira (35:37):

Descendants,

Charlie Harp (35:38):

I need more coffee. If I could tell my descendants or they could say, Hey, Charlie Harp played a role in making healthcare better, that's pretty cool.

Jaime Lira (35:48):

It definitely is. And it's been exciting to watch from this standpoint as a marketer, because I'm a storyteller at heart, and this is the story that we're telling is how can we actually take a look at the quality of data that's being shared and how can we improve it? And I just think it's been very exciting to hear from the different people that you've been interacting with to watch this progress. And it's just been really neat to be a part of this journey. So I'm glad that we had the opportunity today to talk about it a little bit further with people that listen to this podcast. And I look forward to, once we publish the podcast, seeing more data on the website that more people are visiting and more people are submitting their information saying, please keep me up to date. So that's my last plug that I'm going to throw out there for that. Yeah. So what else do you have to say about PIQI?

Charlie Harp (36:39):

I just look forward to people getting involved and giving feedback, positive, negative to help make it better and look forward to see where it goes. I'm super excited about it. And for all of you listening right now, please while I'm talking, go to the website and click around so Jamie can see causality in action, the whole cause and effect. And if I run into you folks at any of these meetings or at HLTH or at the AMIA Symposium or any of these manner of things that we will be doing out there in the world, please don't hesitate to come by and say hi or reach out. If you have ideas or you want to learn more, you can reach out on the PIQIFramework.org website, or you can just email me direct at charlie@clinicalarchitecture.com.

Jaime Lira (37:31):

Yep. So thank you for letting me take over the Infrormonster Podcast. Well,

Charlie Harp (37:35):

Thank you for your coup d'état, taking control. I appreciate it. And I guess with that, I'm Charlie Harp. And

Jaime Lira (37:44):

I'm Jamie Lira.

Charlie Harp (37:45):

And this has been another exciting episode of the Informonster Podcast. Thanks for listening.