Interoperability

The office is seeking feedback on what elements of information flow to measure, what data sources to include in interoperability work, and which metrics to best address MACRA requirements.

Company executives say that joining Cerner, Epic, Meditech and others in promising to use agreed upon standard and not block data is merely formalizing what they already practice.  

A new Black Book report also suggests that new payment models, private health information exchanges, patient locator systems and healthcare analytics will wield more influence driving interoperability forward than government or EHR makers. 

Healthcare leaders say deploying tools for analytics, self-service, order fulfillment and more, while offering individualized experiences such as precision medicine, could promise a big payoff.

The cross-vendor data exchange using IHE and FHIR specifications showed off promising strides, while the industry is still working toward more widespread, real-world use cases.

UH CMIO Jeffrey Sunshine said that deploying an interoperability tool and new modules will help the hospital to create a single patient record physicians can access at the point of care.

Leading providers are already thinking about how to transform themselves from data-driven to information-driven organizations, able to offer drastically improved patient experience akin to Amazon and Google. But it's not easy.

HIMSS Analytics said the Epic shop saw a return on its investment in half the expected time.

EHR makers including Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner, drchrono, Epic and McKesson said they will embrace open specs including S4S APIs and FHIR to connect research apps to electronic health records software.  

COO Jeff Williams said the framework will empower patients and care teams to have more formalized discussions with physicians, beginning with programs for Parkinson’s and post-surgical plans.