Interoperability for the EHR/EMR

[rninformatics, DNP, RN]

Task Force Focuses on Missing Electronic Health Record Standards

By Grant Gross, IDG News Service

The health care industry needs to use IT better, but many doctors and hospitals are concerned about implementing technology such as electronic health records without interoperability standards in place, members of a new U.S. government task force focusing on health IT said last week.

Early pioneers of electronic health records face significant risks, even though U.S. President George Bush is pushing for electronic health records to be available to all U.S. residents by 2014, said speakers at the first meeting of the Commission on Systemic Interoperability. The commission, established in the December 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, is charged by Congress with creating a strategic plan for the nation's health IT infrastructure.

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What is in place for systems failure?

[rninformatics, DNP, RN]

I dont think you quite understand the issue here. The post talks about the President mandating and EHR/EMR without interoperability standards in place -- or within the current environment of insufficient and inadaquate standards in place to faciliate interoperability. Often disparate systems/applications within an institution can not easily communicate data. True integration within a particular vendor's product or between two seperate vendors' products is often an issue. (excluding or interfaces not withstanding) Systems in one hospital/healthcare facility can not transfer/communicate like data elements/patient information to one another as data structure is different from system to system and institution to institution. HL7 has addressed messaging but there are multiple other data elements that unless standardized do not and (at present) can not be communicated from one disparate system/institution to another. "System failure" is not the issue here. System failure is not a generic term but one that can refer to a single or to multiple issues - do you mean hardware, network, power or software failure?

What is in place for systems failure?