“What’s so hard about interoperability, anyway? Lots of hospitals and physician practices already have integrated practice management (PM) and electronic medical record (EMR) systems…” That’s the kind of comment heard quite often in this business, from all manner of intelligent, informed professionals.

Unfortunately, an important matter of semantics sometimes unwittingly leads us to heated debate or a dismissive, “They don’t know what they’re talking about!” attitude. It’s imperative to be aware that discussions of “interoperability” and “integration” can easily leave people talking apples and oranges without ever knowing it.

Here’s the reason: People from so many disparate backgrounds – technological, clinical, business, regulatory, governmental – all play a role in the current push to better automate healthcare. Everyone understands the generalities behind the idea of one HIT system “talking” to another, but most folks have no need to delve into nitty-gritty technical specifics. As a result, “interoperability” and “integration” have become broad-brush terms many of us use synonymously as a way to express the general concept of data connectivity. Read the rest of this entry »