The growth of interoperability

Bob Mitchell, Editor, CMIO

Interoperability is expanding in many hospitals, but one can’t clearly know exactly where to look to observe it in each stage of development as it matures, says James P. Keller Jr., vice president of health technology evaluation and safety at ECRI Institute in Plymouth Meeting, Pa, who presented at the Center for Business Innovation’s recent conference on medical device connectivity at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

As for the present state of interoperability and connectivity, Keller pointed to a survey conducted by HIMSS Analytics and Lantronix last year. After surveying more than 800 hospitals, approximately one-third of provider organizations said they have an interface between their devices and the electronic medical record. Of those who had an interface, about 24 percent involved physiologic monitors, 19 percent fetal monitors, 15 percent electrocardiograms and 9 percent ventilators.

Keller said it is important that hospitals know how they’re going to handle all of this additional data. “You’ve got a lot of potential for building efficiency and accuracy, and the financial incentives and penalties associated with the government’s meaningful use criteria will help drive that,” Keller said, adding that there is a lot of data.

ECRI has spent recent months interviewing more than 2,000 hospitals about their interoperability experiences for its “interoperability database,” which ECRI will use for subscribers to develop and provide instructive case studies. “We’re planning to put some data related to how well medical devices connect to other medical devices and how well they connect to the EMR,” Keller said. All of the hospital respondents to ECRI said they were in the early stages of adopting interoperability or connectivity.

Also, related to the topic of interoperability, the Texas Health Services Authority recently completed an assessment with its consulting partner to begin planning interoperability standards for implementing a statewide health information exchange. The strategy, when completed, will support interoperable health information management and exchange among unaffiliated organizations.

In Spokane, Wash., Inland Northwest Health Services will provide EHR and practice management services to hospitals and ambulatory practices that require network interoperability and care coordination.

Another activity by Beaverton, Ore., Continua Health Alliance, a nonprofit interoperability provider, with more than 240 member companies, examined how devices are passing information into other systems, where the end user may never see the information transfer. In essence, there is no user interface. Information goes directly to the cloud and comes back in a different fashion, Chuck Parker, executive director for the interoperability alliance, said during a recent FDA workshop on mobile applications.

Let us know the interoperability of the medical devices at your facility.

Bob Mitchell
Editor, CMIO
bmitchell@trimedmedia.com