Reliable and secure interoperability is vital for providing safe and efficient patient care, ensuring compliance, and maximizing productivity. It also plays a significant part in the healthcare industry’s digital transformation. Read on to discover everything you need to know about interoperability.
What Is Interoperability in Healthcare?
Interoperability describes the ability of different applications, devices, and systems to share and coordinate electronic health data to optimize patient care. This information exchange relies on standardized protocols and technologies such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) to allow information to move between disparate systems in real time with almost complete autonomy.
What Are the Levels of Interoperability?
There are various degrees of interoperability, often categorized into levels or stages. The most commonly recognized levels are:
1. Foundational Interoperability
At this level, a basic infrastructure is in place that allows one application, device, or system to send and receive data from another securely. Foundational interoperability usually requires some human interaction to start or complete the data transfer.
4. Structural Interoperability
Level 2 interoperability means organizations have implemented common data formats, syntaxes, and protocols that allow various systems to interpret the data. For example, Health Level Seven (HL7) is a format that facilitates the secure exchange of health data between departments.
3. Semantic Interoperability
At interoperability Level 3, different systems can work together by relying on a common understanding and codification of the data, leaving little chance for errors or misinterpretation.
4. Organizational Interoperability
The highest level of interoperability requires alignment of information sharing beyond just data exchange. This means seamless integration of governance, social, legal, and organizational policies across departments, organizations, and geographic boundaries.
Why Is Interoperability Important in Healthcare?
Interoperability reduces medical data silos and ensures healthcare professionals have access to the information they require to understand patients’ needs and provide the appropriate care. For example, it allows a cardiologist to seamlessly share their patient’s cardiogram records with a doctor treating the patient in an emergency room, decreasing the time to treatment and improving the patient’s outcome.
When combined with a healthcare ERP solution, interoperability empowers administrators to improve efficiency with large-scale oversight of every administrative and clinical aspect of a healthcare system so they can make data-driven decisions. Let’s take a closer look at how interoperability can contribute to better healthcare.
1. Exchanging Healthcare Information
Medical specialists and institutions depend on various electronic medical devices and digital healthcare systems to manage and deliver patient care. It’s critical that these technologies can interact effectively and share information such as health records, medical results, and insurance claims in real time across different healthcare departments. Electronic health information exchange (HIE) and Semantic Interoperability enable staff to develop a 360-degree view of the patient and coordinate care.
2. Increasing Patient Engagement
Interoperability allows patients to enjoy more holistic and effective treatment. The easy access to medical records via mobile apps and healthcare portals will also enable individuals to actively participate in their care and gain greater control over their health information. These resources also allow patients to check test results, communicate with healthcare specialists, and better understand their treatment plans.
3. Safeguarding Privacy and Security
While interoperability allows greater availability of patient information, it also needs to safeguard patient privacy and institutional security.
HIPAA requires access to patient data and other electronic information at rest, which must be governed by a stringent permissions system and secured with robust encryption technologies. A secure electronic data interchange (EDI) process is required when data is transmitted.
An integration platform as a service (iPaaS) with EDI functionality is a secure method to share and secure patient information with the data flow protected at every stage by robust cybersecurity measures.
4. Enhancing Research and Population Health
The aggregation of patient data leads to improved and more efficient healthcare for individuals. But also the availability of this information on a population level offers massive benefits to medical research.
For example, thanks to interoperability, public health systems and other stakeholders can enhance risk analysis, identify epidemiological patterns, and optimize preventative care for at-risk populations.
What Are the Standards of Interoperability in Healthcare?
Interoperability is promoted in healthcare thanks to many industry standards and organizations. These enable the secure exchange of medical data among various systems, platforms, and institutions. The standards can be categorized in the following ways:
Vocabulary
This refers to the standardization of the terminology, codes, classifications, and descriptions that allow senders and receivers of information to be sure data is shared accurately among medical software systems. For example, the National Drug Code (NDC) lists all commercially available drugs. At the same time, RadLex is a standardized index of radiology terms managed by the Radiological Society of North America.
Content
Content standards specify the formats and structures of electronic medical messages and documents to ensure health data is interoperable with different software systems. HL7 is a common messaging standard used to define the creation of clinical documents.
Privacy
Strict privacy standards are necessary to protect patients and give them confidence in how healthcare organizations collect, store, and access their personal medical information. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires U.S. healthcare providers to implement administrative, physical, and technical measures to safeguard patient records.
The European Union applies the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to regulate the privacy and security of personal data, including health information, for EU citizens, no matter where the data is stored or transmitted.
Transport
Medical data is not very useful when stored in one location, so transport standards are essential to interoperability. These standards govern the format of messages exchanged between computer systems to ensure data is transmitted securely and accurately. For example, the Direct Standard is a set of standards and protocols that allows health information to be encrypted and sent to trusted recipients over the Internet.
Identifier
An identifier is a unique code that means electronic systems can reliably authenticate the identity of patients, healthcare professionals, or providers. For example, a Medical Record Number (MRN) tracks an individual patient’s medical history and treatment during their hospital stay.
What Are the Benefits of Interoperability in Healthcare?
The interconnection of medical devices and systems is one of the accelerating trends in healthcare. It offers improved service to patients and allows institutions to streamline their operations. Here are some of the advantages interoperability can bring to your organization:
1. Improved Patient Safety
Interoperability allows clinicians to access a complete record of a patient’s medical history. This information enables healthcare professionals to make more accurate diagnoses, improve decision-making around patient care, avoid unnecessary tests, anticipate adverse reactions, and arrange timely follow-ups, leading to better patient outcomes.
2. Reduced Healthcare Costs
Interoperability saves time and money by reducing paperwork, minimizing delays, eliminating information bottlenecks, and enhancing the overall efficiency of care provision thanks to real-time access to patient data, billing and insurance information, treatment availability, and test results.
3. Better Compliance
Failure to ensure compliance risks hefty FDA penalties, possible loss of licenses, and recalls. However, compliance is complicated, requires expertise, and can be expensive. The correct interoperability solution helps make compliance requirements like GxP (Good practice in a given (x) field) more straightforward.
iPaaS solutions like the Boomi platform enable your organization to streamline and maintain compliance by taking advantage of pre-built validation jumpstart templates and frameworks, along with ongoing GxP validation change management services.
4. Efficient Workflows
Real-time interoperability eliminates unnecessary data entry, speeds up information transfer, accelerates workflows, and reduces the opportunities for costly or dangerous errors. A comprehensive interoperability implementation also paves the way for the further automation of workflows.
As providers explore AI solutions, interoperability will only increase in relevance.
To help your organization smoothly and successfully implement interoperability, you should consider an iPaaS.
The Boomi iPaaS allows your institution to:
- Create a single view of the patient across healthcare systems
- Connect legacy ERP systems with modern cloud applications
- Adhere to GxP and compliance requirements with the digital documentation required for validated systems
Learn more about how Boomi’s low-code and agile platform provides speed to value, price predictability, and economies of scale for your healthcare integrations with an iPaaS demo.