Interoperability

I've been avoiding using that word for as long as possible: interoperability. I wrote an introductory blog post about it, referring to the lack of "it" as a giant hairball. I basically had to trick people into thinking they were reading about something interesting. I was afraid the big word police would come after me again.

Although a lot of the information in EHRs is billing information, there may be information in there that is critical to your health and well-being under certain circumstances. In case you missed that post, here's a quick recap.

Although Fred Holliday's medical information was stored in a modern electronic medical record, it was not readily electronically transferable. Regina Holliday included this "data transfer" in her current mural, a portion of which is shown above.

With millions of dollars about to be spent on electronic medical records, shouldn't we be concerned about interoperability? After all the systems are installed, will we be able to transfer medical information in case of emergency?