Thursday, February 7, 2013

Interoperability – Essential for EHR Societal Benefits

“Interoperability is one of the fundamental constituents required to derive societal benefits from Healthcare IT”

Interoperability is a major outcome that healthcare professionals are expecting from every healthcare IT product. What does interoperability mean?  We can state interoperability as a connected healthcare system. It connects healthcare system in a way to make real-time patient data available to every medical practice anywhere. For instance, if Mrs. Johnson moves from Florida to California, her new provider does not need to worry about whether she is allergic to antibiotics and what is her medication history. He does not need to carry out her laboratory tests again. All the information will be available to him online via EHR to EHR link. This is interoperability, and this is what we want to achieve in long-run via different healthcare IT products.

Janice Walker, a healthcare IT researcher, along with her colleagues wrote a paper “The Value of Health Care Information Exchange and Interoperability”. In the paper, she has discussed how interoperability can transform the health industry and produce impressive societal benefits. According to her, seventy-seven billion dollars can be saved from healthcare information exchange and interoperability.  Some of the benefits of interoperability she discussed are:
  • With interoperable healthcare system, providers always have instant access to required information at the point of care
  • It gives convenience and choice to patients to visit any medical practice or provider
  • It gives better and valid data for medical research
  • It reduces medical errors, improves patient care, and reduces costs
Electronic Health Records have various features that aid interoperability. EHR features such as e-prescription, redundant test reminders, lab connectivity and drug interaction checks, etc. have contributed significantly in creating interoperable healthcare system. There is still much to do for healthcare IT companies in order to have a complete interoperable system for realizing societal benefits of healthcare IT.

Fig. Interoperability – Essential for EHR Societal Benefits

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