2. Interoperability
Interoperability is the ability to work together in an oganized manner.
Applied to electronic medical records, interoperability means the
ability of large computer databases containing patient information to
effectively communicate with each other and ultimately communicate the
data to healthcare providers quickly in a meaningful way
(Brodersen
et al., 2016).
Even though the Internet has been has been transmitting data around the
world for almost 50 years now, critically important medical data remains
for the most part hidden away tightly in silos, run by hospitals,
clinics, and insurance companies. This tight lock on patient records
means that even when going a short distance within the same town it is
difficult to access medical records from a different clinic. Although
the clinic is in the same city, the silo housing medical records is just
as isolated as if it was located thousands of miles away. These silos
effectively control medical records, instead of the patient controlling
their own medical records
(Mandl
and Kohane, 2012). Because of the hassle of transferring medical
records, many patients will stay within a single healthcare system for
the sole reason that their medical records are housed within that
system.