Interoperability—Making Information Systems Work Together

Abstract

At a recent conference addressing the care of Iraq and Afghanistan conflict veterans diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries and posttraumatic stress disorder, the incompatibility of soldiers' medical records as they navigated the health system from battlefield to community care was cited as the biggest barrier to quality care. Experts noted treatment delays, redundant tests, extra costs, and patient and provider inconvenience and frustration. Records with pertinent data fail to accompany evacuated soldiers, get lost, and are incompatible among service branch, location, the Department of Defense, the Veteran's Administration, the Social Security Administration, private vendors, and federal, state, and local clinical and benefits information systems. This phenomenon is very familiar to mental health and other providers, who struggle daily to obtain client information from myriad and technologically non-communicating sources. In fact, it is such a problem that it was the focus of a special U.S. government task force, "Ending the Document Game" (National Library of Medicine, 2005).Interoperability ensures that systems can connect to, exchange, and use information with other systems accurately, efficiently, effectively, consistently, and securely (Department of Health and Human Services, 2008; Merryman, 2008). Along with functionality and security, interoperability is a critical health information technology (HIT) feature. The banking industry, in which ATMs work universally and seamlessly, is the ideal, but currently, health information systems more closely resemble silos. Stand-alone competing systems operate independently, often within and between departments, institutions, and states, with little practical regard for how consumers and providers need and use information. As health information

Health Information Technology and Nursing

“…Anecdotal reports show conflicting evidence regarding efficiencies and improved quality relating to EHRs, [16][17][18][19][20] and although EHRs are expected to streamline certain processes for nurses, there is the possibility that switching to this new technology could compromise patient safety if users aren't properly educated on its use. Anecdotal reports show conflicting evidence regarding efficiencies and improved quality relating to EHRs, [16][17][18][19][20] and although EHRs are expected to streamline certain processes for nurses, there is the possibility that switching to this new technology could compromise patient safety if users aren't properly educated on its use.…”

Prediction of COVID-19 Diagnosis Based on OpenEHR Artefacts

“…Standardization and the building block approach are especially effective in hospital environments, where the involvement of experts from each of the different areas is required for data visualizations and data entry forms to be conformant to the specific setting. 1,2,[12][13][14][15] . The specification of concepts through the use of terminologies and clinical guidelines, on the one hand, guarantees semantic compatibility.…”

“…All these issues compromise the potential of Information Technology (IT) to help daily clinical practice and knowledge production, and limits the ability to deploy reliable Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSSs) 1,2 . Clinical data not only enables decisions for continuity of care, but also serves several secondary uses, such as medical and academic research, business intelligence indicators, and the discovery of new knowledge using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ML (ML) algorithms.…”

Prediction of COVID-19 diagnosis based on openEHR artefacts

“…All of these issues jeopardise the ability of Information Technology (IT) to help improve daily clinical practice and valuable knowledge production, as well as limit the ability to deploy reliable Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSSs) 1 , 2 . Clinical data not only enables decisions for continuity of care, but also serves several secondary uses, such as medical and academic research, business intelligence indicators, and the discovery of new knowledge using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms.…”