While interoperability of patient health information is advancing in small steps across the industry, challenges remain.

The rising demand for interoperability between disparate data systems has fueled an increase in data mapping projects. The American Health Information and Management Association released a guidance to assist providers in navigating data mapping to ensure data maintain their integrity as they move from one system to the next.

Results from an Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) grant initiative add evidence to health IT’s positive impact on healthcare-related outcomes when designed to support the management of patients with complex health conditions.

CHICAGO—With so much focus on increases in healthcare costs and other problems with medicine today, “it’s worth reminding ourselves of the incredible changes we’ve seen,” said David O. Meltzer, MD, PhD, chief of the section of hospital medicine at The University of Chicago, speaking at the Healthcare Leadership Forum on Nov. 14.

CHICAGO—Evidence-based medicine offers power and pitfalls to clinicians, said Mark S. Roberts, MD, MPP, professor and chair of the department of health policy & management at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, speaking during the Healthcare Leadership Forum on Nov. 14.

Intermountain Healthcare, a network of 22 hospitals and 185 clinics based in Utah and Idaho, is building a new data system that will be able to track the actual cost of every procedure and piece of equipment used in its system, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

CHICAGO—When it comes to clinical decision support, content is more generalizable but management of that content may have an even bigger impact, said David W. Bates, MD, MSc, senior vice president for quality and safety at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, speaking at the Healthcare Leadership Forum on Nov. 15.

CHICAGO—Healthcare is among the most information intensive fields and most physicians acknowledge that some decision support would be useful to them, said Edward Shortliffe, MD, PhD, professor of biomedical informatics and senior advisor to the executive vice provost for health solutions at Arizona State University, speaking at the Healthcare Leadership Forum on Nov. 14.