Healthcare Interoperability (original) (raw)

2022, Cloud Security Alliance

As healthcare started developing information technology (IT) systems, companies like electronic health record (EHR) and medical device developers created data formats. As information was exchanged between these organizations, it was quickly discovered they could not Communicate with one another. This interoperability problem increased due to the large number of different entities involved with data exchange, all using different and incompatible systems and data structures. Interoperability can be broadly defined as “the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged.”1 In 2015, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released a roadmap for enabling individuals and organizations to share health information securely with any provider. While there have been considerable advancements in interoperability, standardization between systems still needs to be improved. Currently, there are still significant variations in how data is structured and displayed. Despite all the spending, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the percentage of office-based physicians using a certified EHR system is not even 80 percent.2