Interoperability is one health IT's biggest buzz words. What does true interoperability mean? How does healthcare get there? How long will it take?
Vishnu Saxena, Vice President and Business Head of Diaspark Healthcare, a CMMi level 5 Healthcare IT Consulting company providing Product Engineering Services to Providers, Healthcare ISVs and Pharmaceuticals, offers four thoughts on healthcare's journey to achieving interoperability.
1. Why healthcare needs interoperability. The healthcare IT field is exploding with new options every day. From the EHR giants, like Epic, to mHealth companies, like wearables developer Fitbit, the field is riding a crest of meteoric growth. But, as innovative as any single technology is, it has to fit into the larger IT fabric if it is going to drive true change in healthcare. "The common objective is to lower the cost of care and deliver improved outcomes. Interoperability is the nucleus of this issue," says Mr. Saxena.
2. The logistical tangle. Despite the pressing need for interoperability, there remain significant and complex barriers to breach. The companies behind EHRs, the major receptacles of healthcare data, are still businesses, which naturally breads rivalry. "What is the incentive for an EHR company to let their door open and let another company use their data? Companies will have to be incentivized to open the gates," Mr. Saxena says. "We need to drive the mindset that if you are blocking information, you are not making your product successful. There will need to be incentives, from the government, private sector or both, to drive companies to collaborate and generate the solutions that will give birth to real interoperability.”
3. The finish line. The uphill battle to interoperability may seem like a long one, but Mr. Saxena thinks health IT will achieve this goal sooner rather than later. "We won't be talking about interoperability five years from now. It will become normal. With initiative such as Argonaut Project from HL7 international and Interoperability advocacy led by eHealth Initiative and Commonwell, all stakeholders and voices are coming together fast," he says. "No large provider will be able to survive unless they are at some level of interoperability. Providers have mandates to achieve patient outcomes and reduce costs; they can only do that when they have access to health information in the shortest span of time."
4. The next frontier. So much energy in the health IT space is being poured into solving the interoperability issue, but once that is achieved health IT's work will be far from finished. "The next big thing will be telehealth; mobile will continue to dominate," says Mr. Saxena.
For any questions, please contact:Tony J. Bossolina, Senior Client Partner, Healthcare Division, Diaspark, Inc.
Cell: (201)887-4796
Email: tonyb@diaspark.com