Interoperatibility is "essential" to implementing electronic health records, said AAFP EVP Douglas Henley, M.D., at the first meeting of the American Health Information Community on Oct. 7 in Washington.
Henley is the only physician representative on the high-level federal commission that advises HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt. At the meeting, Leavitt described potential breakthroughs AHIC might select as pathways for rapid progress that could be realized within two or three years for implementation across the country. Among the breakthroughs: a personal health record, EHRs, e-prescribing, chronic disease monitoring, a childhood immunization record, adverse drug event reporting and notification, and biosurveillance and pandemic surveillance.
Interoperability Key to EHR Implementation, EVP Tells Federal Panel
By Jane Stoever
10/31/2005
In a recent interview, Henley shared the views he presented during the AHIC meeting. "I made the point that a key responsibility of the AHIC is to ensure that any technologies developed to allow such breakthroughs should have a single common data standard, so these electronic technologies can 'plug and play' with EHRs. Interoperability with EHRs is essential," said Henley. "For example, the last thing we want is personal health record information that has to be rekeyed before going into the EHR in a doctor's office, a hospital or a radiology center."
Retyping would be subject to errors, and facilities would have difficulty moving or entering information back into a stand-alone personal health record, Henley advised AHIC.
He also suggested that work groups to be formed later this year consider current technologies that use common data standards. "These technologies are easy for consumers to use, easy for doctors to use, easy for hospitals to use," he told the commission. "AHIC needs to concentrate on the full EHR implementation" instead of forming, for example, a separate standard for e-prescribing and a separate process for chronic disease monitoring. In the interview, he added that the continuity-of-care record, which the Academy is involved in developing, is an excellent example of use of a common data standard.
Focusing on what he called "the full EHR," Henley told the AHIC, "there's a significant movement in the physician community to move in that direction, and we need to foster that movement." For example, he noted, AAFP surveys indicate that about 10 percent of family physicians used EHRs in 2003, and about 30 percent are using them now.
Retyping would be subject to errors, and facilities would have difficulty moving or entering information back into a stand-alone personal health record, Henley advised AHIC.
He also suggested that work groups to be formed later this year consider current technologies that use common data standards. "These technologies are easy for consumers to use, easy for doctors to use, easy for hospitals to use," he told the commission. "AHIC needs to concentrate on the full EHR implementation" instead of forming, for example, a separate standard for e-prescribing and a separate process for chronic disease monitoring. In the interview, he added that the continuity-of-care record, which the Academy is involved in developing, is an excellent example of use of a common data standard.
Focusing on what he called "the full EHR," Henley told the AHIC, "there's a significant movement in the physician community to move in that direction, and we need to foster that movement." For example, he noted, AAFP surveys indicate that about 10 percent of family physicians used EHRs in 2003, and about 30 percent are using them now.
