Health-information exchange: why are we doing it, and what are we doing?
- Department of Information Systems, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, NYCLIX, Inc., Columbia University, New York, USA
- Correspondence to Gilad J Kuperman, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, 525 East 68th Street, Box 151, New York, NY 10065, USA; gkuperman{at}nyp.org
- Received 2 November 2010
- Accepted 29 April 2011
- Published Online First 14 June 2011
Abstract
Health-information exchange, that is, enabling the interoperability of automated health data, can facilitate important improvements in healthcare quality and efficiency. A vision of interoperability and its benefits was articulated more than a decade ago. Since then, important advances toward the goal have been made. The advent of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act and the meaningful use program is already having a significant impact on the direction that health-information exchange will take. This paper describes how interoperability activities have unfolded over the last decade and explores how recent initiatives are likely to affect the directions and benefits of health-information exchange.
Footnotes
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Competing interests None.
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Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
