A Roadmap for Interoperability

Originally Published MX May/June 2006

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES

At the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), members of the organization's Electronic Health Record Vendors Association (EHRVA) voted to release the group's Interoperability Roadmap version 2.0. The roadmap is the result of more than a year of collaboration among electronic health record (EHR) vendors, standards development organizations, and other stakeholders to develop a model for building a nationwide health information network.

"The EHRVA Interoperability Roadmap is the result of thousands of hours of development and coordination," said Charles Parisot, manager of standards and testing for GE Healthcare Integrated IT Solutions and chair of the EHRVA standards and interoperability work group. "It represents our perspective on the process that will make interoperability a reality. We emphasize that interoperability is a process rather than an endpoint. Our first important milestone is to make the roadmap available for public comment to ensure that it reflects the needs and views of all stakeholders."

The roadmap was originally developed in response to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's request for information for architectures to support a nationwide health information network.

"The industry must define a roadmap for itself or risk having one imposed," said H. Stephen Lieber, president and CEO of HIMSS. "The diverse, high-caliber contributors and supporters of the EHRVA Interoperability Roadmap and their commitment to evolving the plan over time make this framework a prime candidate to drive national initiatives."

The roadmap can be viewed at www.himssehrva.org, along with information on how to submit comments and suggestions.

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