Vendor Selection Criteria: Interoperability
Contents
Interoperability
When selecting a vendor for EHR implementation, interoperability or functionality should be considered. In a 2015 publication, "What makes an EHR "open" or interoperable?" there were five cases where interoperability should be considered when selecting an EHR. The following should be considered:
- Clinicians- essential to provide safe and effective care
- Researchers- critical to advance and understand disease processes
- Administrators - to reduce the dependence on one EHR vendor
- Software developers- to develop interface and software
- Patients- important to access personal health information
Widespread access to EHR information is important if the full potential of the electronic health care system is to be realized.[1]
The purpose of EHR is to provide access of patient information to the right people at the right time. Interoperability is the ability to exchange this information between different EHR systems and stakeholders. [2] There are standards considered by the Health IT. These standards are divided into 3 different categories: content, terminology and transport.[3]
Interoperability Considerations
It is important to determine prior to selecting a vendor what type of data and devices a facility needs to exchange information. [4]
- PACS Systems
- Medical Devices (Monitors, Ventilators, Anesthesia cart, etc.)
- Pharmacy
- Laboratory Orders and Results
- Critical Values Reporting
- Electronic Health Records to other facilities and/or physician's practices
EMR needs to have interoperability specifications
- Defined levels and mechanisms of desired semantic interoperability
- Well-defined architecture and modularized interfaces to build transition plans for future upgrades
- Patient data safety[5]
Ensure that Information Technology, Biomed and EMR vendor are engaged in all conversations to achieve desired interoperability level. [4]
Content Standards
There are mainly two types of contents in clinical data; 1. Structured Data, which is computationally tractable and used in Billing, Lab reports, problem lists and others and 2. Unstructured Data, which is usually physician dictations that is free text, this is not computationally tractable and requires Natural Language Processing. Data extractors likes cTAKES, METAMAP and MEDLEE are used to process free texts.[3]
Terminology Standards
Transport Standards
- The transport standards consist of ELINCS, IEEE 11073, NCPDP and ASC X12.[3]
ELINCS stands for EHR-LAB Interoperability and Connectivity Standards enables messaging between laboratory and clinicians ambulatory EHRs, IEEE 11073 is the transport standard for medical device connectivity and data exchange, National Council for Prescription Drug Program (NCPDP) is for the exchange of prescription related information and Accredited standards Committee (ASC)X12 is for electronic data interchange or computer-computer business data exchange. Other transport standards include Script (V10.10) for physician pharmacist communication, OpenID Connect helps web-based, mobile to connect to an authentication server and IHE-PCD based on IEEE integrates the healthcare enterprise and patient care device. [3]
References
- ↑ Sittig, D.F., Wright, A. (2015). What makes an EHR "open" or interoperable? Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. http://jamia.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/doi/10.1093/jamia/ocv060
- ↑ http://www.healthit.gov/providers-professionals/faqs/what-ehr-interoperability-and-why-it-important
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Hoyt, R. E., & Yoshihashi, A. K. (Eds.). (2014). Health Informatics: Practical Guide for Healthcare and Information Technology Professionals (6th edition)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Achieving INTEROPERABILITY: What's Happening Out There? Williams, Jill Schlabig; Jacobs, Brian, MD http://search.proquest.com.ezproxyhost.library.tmc.edu/docview/922925204?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=7034
- ↑ Interoperability Hufnagel, Stephen P, Phdhttp://search.proquest.com.ezproxyhost.library.tmc.edu/docview/217053410?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=7034
