HIMSS 2018 Trends: Interoperability

Good morning! I thought I was the only one getting an early start on HIMSS.

One of the big themes of HIMSS 2018 will be, wait for it, interoperability. Now, I know what you’re saying, “Hasn’t that been a big theme for the last five years? You can’t be serious.”

Well, it has been, and I can be. We are still not there yet.

38% of hospitals have the ability to use or integrate healthcare data from outside sources into their own EHRs without manual entry

Interoperability is difficult, if you haven’t figured that out yet. And what I mean by interoperability is the ability to take information from one electronic health record and put it into another electronic health record or to an application on my phone, in a way that means something to me.

So, for example, taking a list of medications and sending them to a different place and having that second place be able to utilize that information. That’s really difficult and we are not there. We are getting closer, but we are not there yet. So, I expect to see software developers and EHR vendors really pushing to make sure that we can take information, de-duplicate it, synthesize it, and really use it to take care of patients.

Avaap CMO Craig Joseph, MD, spends his time helping hospitals and health systems learn how to configure their EHR for greater physician efficiency and satisfaction. Want to learn to love your EHR? Let's connect!