Jon Fox, MD and Founder of HealthApp Connect sent me a great message:
We already have a great free HIE and it’s called the internet
He makes an interesting point. Reinforces why I called for hospital CIO’s to start making interoperability a reality as opposed to just talking about it. The technology and connectivity is there. Every hospital is connected to the internet and therefore already connected to every hospital out there. That simplifies the issues, but enough people are overcomplicating what needs to happen. Maybe we need some more people in healthcare willing to look at interoperability more simply.
But it is not that simple! Connectivity is not the issue. I can phone someone in China (connectivity) but I will probably not be able to understand them nor them, me. There need to be standards for each to comply.
As Patrick pointed out, it’s more then a connectivity issue. It is even more then a standards issue. Sure, we all have internet connections now. We also have massive numbers of hackers who would be happy to steal, publicize or sell patient data, or even extort patients to keep their data non-public. We have HIPAA and many other rules to content with. And we have EHRs that are not well designed with standard data sharing interfaces. It’s not about the comms link; it’s about pretty much everything other then the comms link.
Ron