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What is Healthcare Interoperability? |
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Interoperability is "the ability to exchange and use information, usually in a large and heterogeneous network ..." (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn).
The ideal state of healthcare interoperability would be that of healthcare providers being able to send data to each other as easily as banks can now. The real state is that of a budget driven lack of cooperation to agree on a "standard" standard. Software vendors are a part of the puzzle. Interoperability in the Real World Blog
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Unfortunately medical data is a lot more complicated than bank balances. Data standards are the foundation of interoperability. These standards include semantics standards, with terminology to implement them, message standards of a practical nature, (such as those developed by HL7), to send the data and cause the desired resulting actions, and also standard protocols. Message standards encompass much more than just ordinary emails as many messages require a response of a specific nature. A laboratory order message requests that a lab test is done. A prescription message sent to a pharmacy requires that a prescription is filled.
C Sharp and its web services have different protocols than Java and J2EE. Finally security standards are a major issue. A part of security policy involves who is allowed to see what in an electronic healthcare data record and when and how should that be overridden in an emergency. Many countries are cooperating to make these standards a reality.
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 "'80% of the challenge of interoperability is the establishment of practical and implementable data standards. The other 20% includes healthcare policy, human languages, and legal problems. This is a technical challenge which must be solved in an international arena with international standards so the effort and costs can be spread out between various countries. Canada, the U. K., Australia, Japan, and Germany are already dedicated to data standards." Galen Mulrooney
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