Tag Archives: vendors

What stage of “Meaningful Interoperability” are you?

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interoperable-600x300The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) just released what it calls “A 10-Year Vision to Achieve an Interoperable Health IT Infrastructure.” The directive generating the most attention calls for “a common set of electronic clinical information…at the nationwide level by the end of 2017.”  According to ONC, the common data set would consist of about 20 basic elements, such as patient demographics and lab test results.

At first blush, the ONC directive is a small step in the right direction, but sets the bar awfully low. Rest assured that vendors will consider 20 basic elements the maximum data set, not the minimum. A more effective approach would, for example, specify vocabularies (LOINC, RxNORM), document types (JSON, XML) and transport mechanisms (HTTPS or other TLS) to be used when sending or receiving data instead of focusing on the data elements themselves.

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Transformation in 2015: Focusing Technology on the Patient

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We are currently experiencing the biggest transformation in healthcare ever. Technology plays a significant role as an enabler of this transformation, but will not drive it alone. Improving patient care and driving toward patient engagement are crucial goals in this next phase of the healthcare industry. To make adoption ubiquitous and implementation effective, there are several things we should focus on as we dive into 2015:

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Cerner/Siemens and Blue Shield/Blue Cross: What Happens Next?

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The industry is buzzing over the news that Cerner is buying the health information technology business unit of Siemens. The Siemens acquisition is the most recent high-profile example of consolidation that is taking place in all sectors of healthcare.

The consolidation trend is not new, of course. Providers reacted first, by aligning as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and clinical integration (CI) networks during the past five years. Then the passing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) accelerated the need for collaboration, forcing providers to acquire additional acute care and post-acute care facilities as well as physicians’ offices. This consolidation trend was the first to expose the obvious lack of interoperability amongst vendors.

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The Partner Approach to Implementing Change

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imagesTechnology is created and designed to make life simpler. For physicians, mobile technology offers the ability to review data more immediately and conveniently. It also helps provide the patient with better, more holistic care. All sounds great, right?

Almost.

Implementing any change in an organization is tricky. It requires effort from all parties involved to transform the “new thing” into “the norm.” Physicians need to see the value of the solution and be encouraged to use it regularly. The vendor needs to tweak its solutions to meet the needs and expectations of the customer. And the customer needs to adopt new workflows to support the technology. It’s a cycle of trust, encouragement and adjustment.

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