Procuring Interoperability: Achieving High-Quality, Connected, and Person-Centered Care
An NAM Special Publication
Realizing the promise of digital technology will depend on the ability to share information across time and space from multiple devices, sources, systems, and organizations. The major barrier to progress is not technical; rather, it is in the failure of organizational demand and purchasing requirements. In contrast to many other industries, the purchasers of health care technologies have not marshaled their purchasing power to drive interoperability as a key requirement. Better procurement practices, supported by compatible interoperability platforms and architecture, will allow for better, safer patient care; reduced administrative workload for clinicians; protection from cybersecurity attacks; and significant financial savings across multiple markets.
With funding support from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, this National Academy of Medicine Special Publication represents a multi-stakeholder exploration of the path toward achieving large-scale interoperability through strategic acquisition of health IT solutions and devices. In this publication, data exchanges over three environments are identified as critical to achieving interoperability: facility-to-facility (macro-tier); intra-facility (meso-tier); and at point-of-care (micro-tier). The publication further identifies the key characteristics of information exchange involved in health and health care, the nature of the requirements for functional interoperability in care processes, the mapping of those requirements into prevailing contracting practices, the specification of the steps necessary to achieve system-wide interoperability, and the proposal of a roadmap for using procurement specifications to engage those steps. The publication concludes with a series of checklists to be used by health care organizations and other stakeholders to accelerate progress in achieving system-wide interoperability.
Publication Release Webinar
Editors
- Peter Pronovost,聽Johns Hopkins Medicine (Chair)
- Michael M. E. Johns,聽Emory University (Co-Chair)
- Sezin Palmer,聽Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (Co-Chair)
- Raquel C. Bono,聽US Department of Defense
- Douglas B. Fridsma,聽American Medical Informatics Association
- Andrew Gettinger,聽Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT
- Julian Goldman,聽Massachusetts General Hospital
- William Johnson,聽WMJ Associates, LLC
- Meredith Karney,聽Center for Medical Interoperability
- Craig Samitt,聽Anthem, Inc.
- Ram D. Sriram,聽National Institute of Standards and Technology
- Ashwini Zenooz,聽US Department of Veterans Affairs
- Y. Claire Wang,聽National Academy of Medicine
Related Meetings
- Special Publication Webinar |聽April 16, 2019
- Procuring Digital Interoperability for Health Care |聽January 30, 2018
