| | DECEMBER 20189UTLOOK Healthcare Tech equally important. Was the patient sitting or lying down? Was this measurement taken at the beginning or end of the exam? Could their results have been affected by the walk into the doctor's office or the weather outside? The processes understood in one office may be different in another. Understanding context is as critical as understanding the data, exponentially increasing the complexity of sharing healthcare information.As computers grew in capability, physicians recognized the value of putting their information into electronic form. Eventually, EHRs began to appear in medical settings, supported with federal incentives under the American Recovery and Revitalization Act. Each office or medical facility functioned within its own unique environment and had their own technical processes for which systems were specifically designed. Without awareness of how their processes differed from those in other healthcare practices, many systems were not designed to easily communicate with systems in other practices. Adding to the complexity, much of the content in a patient's file is confidential. The industry must overlay complex processes to ensure security and to conform to federal, state, and local privacy laws. It is worth noting that medical professionals who understand the liabilities that come with protecting patient confidentiality will likely want to fully understand where the data and information goes, how it's used, and who is responsible for Proper implementation of standards for data recording and exchange provides a path toward innovation which enables efficiency and ultimately better care for American citizensits security before committing to implementing an EHR or sharing data.So how do we move toward a future of interoperability within Health IT? One of the many challenges the community must overcome is reaching agreement on standards for even the simplest data elements. Until there are agreed upon and implemented standards for how to record and exchange data, the Health IT community will struggle to take advantage of the value of computing. Those of us in the medical and IT communities must ultimately agree to compromise for the good of the whole; we must adopt standardized fields and processes so together we can help better the lives of patients, families, and the medical community. To move forward across the Health IT community, a commitment must be made to implement business processes and standards that allow information to flow across boundaries. Identifying how information is technically stored and recorded should no longer be viewed as something that stifles innovation. Instead, we must embrace that proper implementation of standards for data storage and exchange provides a path toward innovation which enables efficiency and ultimately better care for American citizens. Health professionals, IT professionals, federal/state/local government, Health IT developers, patients, and family members, must all be willing to collaborate and more importantly compromise, even if compromise means being willing to potentially re-tool or find new areas/ways to do business. Like the early American railroads, it will undoubtedly be a difficult transition, but it provides a proven track to interoperability. HTGail Kalbfleisch
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