Interoperability

Lahey Health, which provides care in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, will tap Quartet's technology-enabled model of mental healthcare to support better patient outcomes and lower costs.

Defense Department is on track to rollout new electronic health records software in the Pacific Northwest later in 2016, and officials are calling the project a new beginning toward interoperable, safe and secure patient records.

The office is seeking feedback on what elements of information flow to measure, what data sources to include in interoperability work, and which metrics to best address MACRA requirements.

Company executives say that joining Cerner, Epic, Meditech and others in promising to use agreed upon standard and not block data is merely formalizing what they already practice.  

A new Black Book report also suggests that new payment models, private health information exchanges, patient locator systems and healthcare analytics will wield more influence driving interoperability forward than government or EHR makers. 

Healthcare leaders say deploying tools for analytics, self-service, order fulfillment and more, while offering individualized experiences such as precision medicine, could promise a big payoff.

The cross-vendor data exchange using IHE and FHIR specifications showed off promising strides, while the industry is still working toward more widespread, real-world use cases.

UH CMIO Jeffrey Sunshine said that deploying an interoperability tool and new modules will help the hospital to create a single patient record physicians can access at the point of care.

Leading providers are already thinking about how to transform themselves from data-driven to information-driven organizations, able to offer drastically improved patient experience akin to Amazon and Google. But it's not easy.

HIMSS Analytics said the Epic shop saw a return on its investment in half the expected time.