HIMSS 2026 to Showcase 'Digital Front Door'

The push for a "digital front door" is heavily driven by federal policy, specifically the 21st Century Cures Act. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) now prohibits "information blocking," mandating that providers give patients electronic access to their full health records without delay or cost. This seamless data access relies on a specific technical standard: HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources). Regulators have mandated the use of FHIR-based Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which act as universal translators, allowing patient-facing apps and portals to securely pull information directly from different EHR systems. In the ICU, the next frontier is artificial intelligence integrated into clinical decision support. AI models analyze vast, real-time data streams from monitors and the EHR to predict sepsis, organ failure, and other acute conditions, in some cases improving early detection by 20-40% and enhancing diagnostic accuracy. For frontline nurses, however, EHRs remain a primary source of frustration. Studies reveal acute care nurses can spend over 30% of a 12-hour shift on documentation. Common complaints about systems like Epic include redundant data entry, poor workflow navigation, and cumbersome flowsheets that take time away from direct patient care. In response, some health systems are optimizing their Epic builds to reduce nurse burnout. By redesigning flowsheets to eliminate unnecessary fields, UCHealth cut documentation time by 18 minutes per nurse per 12-hour shift, saving over 64,800 hours annually. Another optimization project reduced the clicks needed for some templates by more than 50%. This is where clinical experience becomes a critical asset in health IT. An ICU nurse's understanding of workflow bottlenecks is invaluable for designing better systems. Transitioning into informatics allows nurses to move from experiencing EHR frustrations to architecting the solutions. For nurses pivoting to informatics, the key credential is the board certification in Nursing Informatics (NI-BC) from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Eligibility generally requires an active RN license, a BSN, two years of full-time practice, and specific hours of experience in informatics nursing.