EHR adoption is on the rise, but interoperability remains a key roadblock. What needs to happen to facilitate an environment of open-data exchange?
According to the latest figures by HHS, EHR adoption is going strong in the U.S. — with more than 80 percent of eligible hospitals and 50 percent of doctors slated to leverage EHR systems by the end of 2013. It seems as though we’ve reached the tipping point in EHR adoption. This is great news, but it’s only the first step in a much grander plan. The fact is, EHR adoption will do little good if the systems don’t ultimately share patient data with one another. Dr. Farzad Mostashari and other leaders of the ONC have been forced to repeatedly defend the nation’s progress in regards to EHR interoperability before Congress. One of the central issues is the siloed and proprietary nature in which most EHR products on the market are designed today. These systems aren’t built to easily and openly share data with competitive products.
According to David Muntz, principal deputy at HHS/ ONC, this siloed approach by vendors was not unexpected. “EHR vendors, with no ill intent, but simply because they wanted to get things done rapidly, created interfaces that work within their existing software and the equipment they were familiar with,” he says. “They didn’t take time to design an interface that is going to work with every other product. That’s natural. Just like auto parts are not interchangeable between models, EHR vendors went about building the best self-contained EHR solution they could.” Source
