Key EMR solution executives and healthcare provider organizations convened at the KLAS Keystone Summit in Midway, UT, to help solve the key interoperability challenges facing the industry. Micky Tripathi, President and CEO, Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, led and moderated the summit to see whether vendors and providers could take a straw man created by interoperability experts John Halamka, M.D., Stan Huff, M.D., and Dan Nigrin, M.D., and make it a viable measurement tool.
The by-product of the summit is the following statement from the executives in attendance:
“On October 2, 2015, a broad group of EHR stakeholders, including vendor CEOs and provider CIOs, agreed by consensus to objective measures of interoperability and ongoing reporting. Leaders of 12 different EHR vendor companies proactively stepped forward to have an independent entity publish transparent measures of health information exchange that can serve as the basis for understanding our current position and trajectory. Assisted by leading provider organizations and informatics experts, these executive officers knocked down barriers to arrive at measures to improve interoperability for the public good. Vendors and providers willingly committed to go arm in arm to work closely with Washington to help alleviate the interoperability-measurement burden faced by the government.
CEOs or designated executives of the following 12 companies helped build/shape the measurement, and they support its use to independently and transparently measure/assess the status and trajectory of interoperability:
- Allscripts: Assaf Halevy, VP Business Development, Solutions Management
- athenahealth: Jonathan Bush, CEO
- Cerner: Zane Burke, President
- eClinicalWorks: Girish Kumar, CEO
- Epic: Judy Faulkner, CEO
- GE Healthcare: Jan De Witte, President & CEO HCIT
- Greenway: Tee Green, CEO
- Healthland: Chris Bauleke, CEO
- McKesson: Jeff Felton, President
- MEDITECH: Hoda Sayed-Friel, EVP
- MEDHOST: Steve Starkey, VP Product
- NextGen Healthcare: Rusty Frantz, President & CEO”
“The consensus on an objective measure is a great step forward for the industry as executives find ways to overcome the complex issue of interoperability,” says Adam Gale, President and CEO, KLAS. “We are committed to helping the industry leaders work toward a viable interoperability solution, and we will continue to provide energy around the goal.”
The next step is to put a cohesive plan in place to launch and monitor the measurement. This plan will include continued involvement from those participating in the summit as they lock arms to make a difference.
