Tate Erlinger, MD, MPH, Vice President of Clinical Informatics, Ascension, recently presented on the issue of data interoperability as part of a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Healthcare Leadership Council.
The panel, “The Path to Data Interoperability Is Under Construction,” focused on the private sector’s role in advancing data interoperability, current challenges, and how public-private partnerships can further expand access to health data to better enable coordinated care.
Dr. Erlinger discussed why data interoperability is essential for achieving integrated, high-value care. Readily accessible, accurate and interoperable data allows providers like Ascension to coordinate a patient’s care across sites of care and throughout physician networks, while identifying benchmarks that care help improve the patient’s quality of care and increase value. He stressed the importance of collaboration between providers, electronic health record vendors and regulatory entities to design data systems that can communicate with each other and to avoid unintended consequences of proposed rules and regulations.
