Meet the Sparked Technical Co-Chairs: Ricardo Inacio
Meet Ricardo Inacio – Director Clinical Informations at the Australian Digital Health Agency, and AU Core Technical Design Group Co-Chair.
Currently working at the Australian Digital Health Agency as their Director of Clinical Informatics, Ricardo brings a strong FHIR background to the Sparked team. As one of the co-chairs for the Technical Design Group, Ricardo works alongside the TDG, with a particular focus on the AU Patient Summary FHIR IG Project, to develop requirements and specifications for interoperability among clinical and non-clinical systems in Australia. We are incredibly grateful for Ricardo’s contributions, and he is a highly valued member of the Sparked community!
We spoke to Ricardo about his involvement with Sparked, here is what he had to say!
🤔What is your working background?
I’m currently the Director of Clinical Informatics at the Australian Digital Health Agency. Prior to working at the Agency, I worked in technology and data-related roles across different organisations in the Health and Public Sector in Australia, New Zealand and Europe
🤔How did you become involved with Sparked?
The team I lead at the Agency is responsible for the development of FHIR specifications and has been one the greatest contributors to the development of HL7 standards in Australia. The team has been collaborating with Sparked since its beginning, supporting the development of the HL7 AU Core and eRequesting FHIR Implementation Guides
🤔 What is your role within Sparked?
I am a co-chair of the Sparked Technical Design Group and focus specifically on the AU Patient Summary FHIR IG Project
🤔 What does Sparked mean to you?
Sparked is bringing all the different parts that are needed to develop new fit-for-purpose standards together and creating an environment where they can all be put to work in an efficient and effective manner
🤔 What is something that you hope to achieve within the Sparked program?
A balloted FHIR IG for the Australian Patient Summary
🤔 How is the Sparked program different to projects you’ve been involved in before?
I’ve been managing and working on projects for a long time, but I’ve never seen anything quite like Sparked. Having clinical and technical minds working in unison has been quite amazing to witness
🤔 What’s been your favourite part of working within the Sparked team?
Learning from others with different backgrounds to mine
🤔 What would you tell someone wanting to learn more about the Sparked project?
Come to one of the Sparked events to see what it’s all about
🤔 How will the goals and outcomes of the Sparked Program impact your field/industry/profession?
As someone who leads a team on the coal face of using interoperability standards, the work
we’re doing through Sparked will help me deliver work to my end customers more quickly and at a lower cost
🤔 What’s your favourite Sparked/FHIR pun?
When it comes to healthcare data, we’re the FHIR-fighting heroes