Welcome, Sai Valluripalli! July 9, 2012

Sai is a new member of the Uber Operations Team. His background is in the NwHIN and Direct technologies and standards. He is working with Uber Operations on the Florida Department of Health – Bureau of HIV/AIDS project on the Mirth Match (EMPI) implementation, configuration and training.

When did you get into Health IT?
I have been into HealthCare since 2005. It started with United Healthcare helping them to migrate all their Health Insurance system from legacy Forte environment to more advanced systems using IBM Websphere. Since then I continued working in Health Insurance and then moved to HealthCare in 2007. In April started working on NHIN Connect programs which is a new initiation
from Federal Government.

What project are you currently working on with Uber Operations?
I am supporting the activities related to Florida Department of Health HIV/AIDS agency to setup EMPI.

Can you share with us the largest or most significant project you have been apart of?
-I am part of NHIN Connect product development team (http://www.connectopensource.org )
-I am part of Florida State Health Information Exchange (FHIE: http://www.fhin.net/ )

What have you done with NwHIN and DIRECT?
System Integration and Architecture reviews for NwHIN and NHIN Direct products.

Do you see the NwHIN happening anytime soon?
In my perspective NwHIN might take few years to happen than expected due to change in the direction of several activities happening around. Example: Change in Government, Change in technology, change in policies and procedures, change in standards. These are all very dynamic in nature. NwHIN is directly dependent on all or some of these factors.

What are your thoughts on the industry thought that DIRECT is a “temporary”
solution for health information exchange?
In my perspective NHIN Direct is only a standard and specification to consider, the reference implementations can be different and temporary. Standards/specifications are not temporary they keep evolving on day to day basis.

Where do you see health IT in 10 years?
With so much happening around the Nation on HealthCare IT. I am seeing so many organizations showing interest on participating in Health IT and provide services in and around HealthCare. Very few or seriously focused and few are just watching and waiting for opportunity. Keeping all this in mind in next 10 years Health IT improves to a scale of 6 from 1 to 10 were 1 is low and 10 is high based on the current situation.