interoperability Archives

Get FHIRed Up

by Barry P Chaiken, MD | Feb 10, 2016 | Archives

Although I’m a physician, not a technology expert, I’m jazzed about the FHIR® (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) specification. Organizations struggle to share patient information with each other due to data structure and definition incompatibilities. This...

Predicting the Future: What to Look for in 2016

by Barry P Chaiken, MD | Jan 20, 2016 | Archives

The role of a prognosticator is to accurately predict the future. Although many have tried to predict the trend of the stock market, an imminent earthquake, or even the end of the world, soothsayers rarely get their predictions correct. That said, they are very...

Square Peg – Round Hole Problem

by Barry P Chaiken, MD | Jul 6, 2015 | Archives

Last summer the physician Congressman Phil Gingrey (GA) held hearings to highlight the unacceptable lack of interoperability among electronic medical record systems. Gingrey said: “Congress has spent, as we all know, something like $24 billion over the past six...

Still Babbling

by Barry P Chaiken, MD | Jan 19, 2015 | Healthcare IT

Update: In the more than seven years since I wrote this article, healthcare information technology tools continue to struggle to achieve robust interoperability. Fortunately, through efforts of the Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare Information...

Our Tower of Babel

by Barry P Chaiken, MD | Nov 5, 2013 | Healthcare IT

The Bible describes why humans speak so many languages: The narrative of the city of Babel is recorded in Genesis 11:1-9. Everyone on earth spoke the same language. As people migrated from the East, they settled in the land of Shinar. People there sought to make...