EHRVA Publishes Second Version of Its Interoperability Roadmap
The Electronic Health Record Vendors Association, a trade association regrouping EHR vendors formed by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in 2004, released version 2.0 (pdf) of its interoperability roadmap. Despite the 2.0 moniker, this is still a draft for stakeholder review, meant among other things to engage legislators and policymakers and have them acknowledge the role and experience of the vendor side. The first version of this document was published in February 2005 as part of the responses to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology request for information to build a national health information network (NHIN). This roadmap tries to outline what’s possible starting with the tools already available today.
Modern Healthcare quoted Charlene Underwood, director of government and industry affairs at Siemens Medical Solutions and chairwoman of the EHRVA, as saying that interoperability at the regional and national level which get most of the focus from federal authorities is “not one of the top things our customers [hospitals] are telling us they want us to do. It’s like 10th out of 10.” Faced with that reality, software vendors are proposing a step-by-step plan that can deliver incremental benefits all along the way.
March 9, 2006 Related topics: Standards, IT & software