eHealth

Interoperability: Failure To Launch

Failure to Launch

On April 27, 2004, President George W. Bush proclaimed a bold goal for the nation: "Within the next 10 years, electronic health records will ensure that complete health care information is available for most Americans at the time and place of care, no matter where it originates. ... These electronic health records will be designed to share information privately and securely among and between health care providers when authorized by the patient." 

More than 10 years later, most observers within the U.S. health care system and the health IT industry would agree that this goal of interoperability has not yet been achieved, and may not even be within clear sight.  Although pockets of interoperability exist, the EHR systems used by inpatient, outpatient and ancillary providers generally cannot exchange patient data electronically, sometimes even among systems developed by the same EHR vendors. Although myriad interoperability standards exist on paper, real world connectivity between individual EHR systems still requires extensive custom interface development, attended by large and often prohibitive costs. 

Uncle Sam and Cousin Karen (DeSalvo) want your Interoperability Roadmap Public Comments

Uncle Sam and Karen DeSalvo

ONC is accepting public comments on Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap Draft Version 1.0 (link is external). The comment period ends at 5 p.m. on April 3, 2015.

The draft Roadmap (link is external) proposes critical actions that need to be taken by both private and public stakeholders to advance the nation towards a more connected, interoperable health IT infrastructure and was drafted by ONC based on input from private and public stakeholders. The draft Roadmap (link is external) outlines the critical actions for different stakeholder groups necessary to help achieve an interoperable health IT ecosystem.

ONC issues draft nationwide health IT Interoperability Roadmap; Implementation resources also released as first deliverable

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)  released Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap Version 1.0. The draft Roadmap is a proposal to deliver better care and result in healthier people through the safe and secure exchange and use of electronic health information.

Section 508 Best Practices Webinar: Accessible Electronic Documents - Authoring Guide for Making an Accessible Document in MS Word 2010 (January 27)

Section 508 Best Practices Webinar: Accessible Electronic Documents - Authoring Guide for Making an Accessible Document in MS Word 2010 (January 27)

Many Say Meaningful Use Stage 2 Is Disastrous, but the Data Say Otherwise

by Anantachai (Tony) Panjamapirom, January 8, 2015

The industry news is full of disparaging talk about the health of the EHR Incentive Programs (i.e., meaningful use), particularly the low number of Stage 2 attestations. While some statistics show that only 35% of the nation's hospitals have met Stage 2 meaningful use requirements, further analysis reveals a different story.

AMA Unveils Framework Outlining Priorities To Improve EHR Usability

The American Medical Association released a framework outlining eight priorities for making electronic health records easier for providers to use, Modern Healthcare reports (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 9/16).

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