Interoperability: What Is It, How Can We Make It Work for Clinicians, and How Should We Measure It in the Future?

Health information technology to improve care for people with multiple chronic conditions

“…Prior to 2010, there were few reports of health IT tools supporting care coordination activities in a real‐world clinical setting 46,61 . Important care coordination activities, such as information transfer between health care providers in different settings, establishing accountability, and negotiating responsibility, continue to be limited by interoperability barriers 62 . One particularly important activity, creating a proactive plan of care, requires shared decision making between health care providers, PLWMCC, their families, and other caregivers.…”

“…46,61 Important care coordination activities, such as information transfer between health care providers in different settings, establishing accountability, and negotiating responsibility, continue to be limited by interoperability barriers. 62 One particularly important activity, creating a proactive plan of care, requires shared decision making between health care providers, PLWMCC, their families, and other caregivers. In addition to a collaborative approach, care planning must include reliable, open communication between all parties, and prioritization of care based on evidence as well as patient preferences.…”

Adoption of Health Information Technology Among US Nursing Facilities

“…Without engagement in interoperability, EHRs risk becoming just another data silo. While EHRs have many benefits, it is through HIT interoperability that patient information can be shared and used across providers and settings of care that will generate the greatest value for both individual providers and the overall health care system (Bates & Samal, 2018). Nevertheless, the low levels of engagement with interoperability was somewhat expected.…”

Population-level public mental health intervention via interdisciplinary COVID-19 health crisis communication: how can occupational therapists contribute?

“…Facilitating interoperability between teams is primarily an operations role with some health-related proofreading / fact-checking involved. Interoperability refers to refers to 'the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged' (Bates & Samal, 2018); good interoperability is essential to strong public health intervention and is facilitated through action guided by systems thinking (Dixon et al, 2020). An occupational therapy model as described in Phase 1 was used to facilitate the systems perspective needed to develop an overall profile of the organisation, followed by team profiles which allow identification of assets and gaps influencing performance within teams and between teams.…”