Interoperability in increments
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| Mary Stevens, Editor |
Every vendor my colleagues and I spoke with at the recent HIMSS10 conference in Atlanta earlier this month talked about the ways their systems could play nice with others--either sharing information from disparate systems and devices, or moving data from one point (or hospital) to another. Most of these vendors named the standards that their products are built on or accommodate. They have to because, as more than one vendor rep told us:
- systems that act proprietary won't get purchased; and
- more and more prospective buyers are asking tough, specific questions about how a system or device will work with the health IT they already have installed.
Now imagine the federal government wants its agencies to communicate better. This might be the ultimate interoperability challenge, but the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is working to connect agencies, with the Federal Healthcare Architecture (FHA) program and the development of CONNECT, open-source software that will allow providers of any size to exchange health information. CONNECT is one tool being used to build the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).
"The role of the government in this was to create the platform for collaboration: The same product can be used for a 19-bed facility or an organization like the VA or DoD," Vish Sankaran, FHA program director at ONC, told CMIO.
The point of all this is that widespread connectivity may never be easy, but all sides of health IT are working on it, in increasingly coordinated efforts. Integration and interoperability are becoming more imperative by the day, but a growing number and range of resources are available, along with more firsthand experiences from your peers. Incremental integration does add up.
Mary Stevens, Editor
mstevens@trimedmedia.com