Halamka: Stage 2 will dramatically increase data liquidity

Prior to participating in the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT's (ONC) annual meeting, John D. Halamka, MD, MS, health IT guru and CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, blogged that interoperability will dramatically increase by 2014.

That's due to Meaningful Use Stage 2 providing the technology, policy and incentives to make interoperability real, he wrote on his blog, Life as a Healthcare CIO.

The requirement that providers demonstrate, in production, the exchange of clinical care summaries for 10 percent of their patient encounters "will bring most professionals and hospitals to the tipping point where information exchange will be implemented at scale, rapidly accelerating data liquidity."

"The standards included in Meaningful Use Stage 2 are unambiguous," Halamka wrote. "Content, vocabulary and transport standards backed by comprehensive implementation guides and resources like the National Library of Medicine's Value Set Authority Center eliminate the gaps in semantic interoperability that were an impediment to interoperability in the past."

Payment incentives and shifts in payment model are making redundant testing a cost rather than a source of profits which will drive data-sharing, he said.

He wrote that he looks forward to a future where no patients will have to face paper-based, uncoordinated care. "With certified technology, standards and incentives to share data among providers and patients, 2013-2014 will usher in a new era of interoperability."

Read the entire blog.