Leaders from a dozen electronic health record (EHR) vendors have agreed to adopt a set of metrics to measure interoperability, although more details are relatively unknown at this point.
At the KLAS Keystone Summit in Utah earlier this month, key EHR solution executives and healthcare provider organizations convened to discuss interoperability challenges facing the industry. According to a KLAS statement, Micky Tripathi, Ph.D., president and CEO of 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., CIO Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Stan Huff, M.D., CMIO, Intermountain Healthcare; and Dan Nigrin, M.D., CIO, Boston Children's Hospital, and make it a viable measurement tool.
The executives in attendance released the following statement in conclusion of the Summit: “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.”
The 12 EHR vendors represented at the Summit were:
- Allscripts
- athenahealth
- Cerner
- eClinicalWorks
- Epic
- GE Healthcare
- Greenway
- Healthland
- McKesson
- MEDHOST
- MEDITECH
- NextGen Healthcare
According to media reports, the idea was to get agreement to a baseline way, similar to Consumer Reports, to measure interoperability. The next step, according to KLAS, 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,” the statement said.
“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,” said KLAS president and CEO, Adam Gale. “We are committed to helping the industry leaders work toward a viable interoperability solution, and we will continue to provide energy around the goal.”
