KLAS reports, namely the one on interoperability published in February, often take narrow approaches to product evaluation, which can be inaccurate and dangerous, Allscripts CEO Paul Black argues in a company blog post.
For its interoperability report, KLAS conducted more than 500 interviews with providers about interoperability, but only honed in on "plug-and-play" data sharing, which describes an EHR vendor's ability to integrate their product into a single national network that their clients can participate in and access data from. Because the report only evaluated two networks that facilitate the sharing of patient records — CommonWell Health Alliance and Carequality — it neglected other modes of interoperability like point-to-point interfaces, local health information exchanges and application programming interfaces, Mr. Black argues.
There are many approaches to interoperability, Mr. Black writes, and the report failed to consider the value to the clinician and the ability to aggregate data or remove duplicate elements. For example, Allscripts has ties to the Department of Veterans Affairs in which it uses its interoperability solution, dbMotion, to facilitate data exchange between VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System and private hospitals or physician practices that use different EHR vendors.
"At Allscripts, we have heard from our clients that interoperability must be about more than just connecting data; it's about making that data useful to the clinician at the point of care so they can take better care of patients. It's about enabling healthcare professionals and patients to share data across the continuum, no matter where they are, or which vendor or networks they use," Mr. Black writes.
Click here to read Mr. Black's complete blog post.
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