Unless you’re main focus is in health policy, words like Interoperability can be quite intimidating at first glance. Interoperability sets the tone for how we connect health data together-whether that data is in a patient’s chart, a hospital or in an EHR. So many policy leaders and reporters use the term without really giving a clear-cut explanation of what it means and how it will effect Meaningful Use. I sat down with Practice Fusion Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Bob Rowley to get to know interoperability.
Interoperability: the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together (inter-operate). The term is often used in a technical or engineering sense, taking into account various factors such as political (aka ONC) social and organizational factors that impact system to system performance.
Interoperability according to Shea: A word that makes you brain cells cringe with confusion otherwise known as a fancy way of saying the act of transferring data from point A to point B. Each system has to follow the Hl-7 standards of interoperability in order to have a clear connection between each other.
The challenge with Interoperability: Sounds like a pretty understandable topic when you break it down. So what’s all the fuss about with interoperability and EHRs? Drummond Group Inc. one of the six entities authorized by the ONC to certify EHRs, says just because hundreds of products have been certified to conform to current interoperability standards doesn’t mean they’re actually interoperable.
The HL-7 standards set by the federal government have so much leeway with different ways of implementing the criteria that it’s hard to say if one product can securely and fully integrate with another. Connecting two systems, whether it’s a small-practice doctor connecting to a hospital or vice versa, has been quite a challenge in the past. The supposed standards are really not that standard. Every time there is a connection; it involves a lot of work to customize the connection to match the other system’s integration of the HL-7 standards.
“What matters is whether or not each system speaks the same language to each other. We found out that with connecting labs, each lab interprets the so-called standard, the HL-7 standard, the system has to create a message and the receiver needs to know how to interpret it and each system’s version of the message is just a little different enough where you just have tweak it each time and that’s the big problem,” said Dr. Bob Rowley, Chief Medical Officer of Practice Fusion.
One of the solutions proposed is Health Information Exchange (HIE), which could potentially allow the mobilization of information between organizations. Hospitals, small and large practices, labs, etc, could all connect to one another using an HIE as a hub between them. But that is just one of the many proposed ways to bridge the connection gap.
“HIEs aren’t really mature yet, it’s a good idea but it’s based on assumptions that everyone is local which is not true and that may be one of several ways to get connected,” said Dr. Rowley.
In the meantime, we can give our input and hope for the best. In the near future, Practice Fusion plans on opening our API and to allow for a clear connection and interoperability between various hospitals, medical groups and patient platforms.
“Practice Fusion will be innovative and finds ways to connect but it’s not our role to create the standard. It’s the role of the federal government to create standards that we need to adhere to,” said Dr. Rowley.
Shea Steinberg
Jr. Social Media Specialist
Practice Fusion EHR
