Consider challenges health care providers are facing in light of the national health IT agenda related to sharing data across information systems and/or controlled terminology standards. What strategies could a health care organization use to address interoperability challenges? Conduct additional research as necessary to determine possible solutions.

Controlled Terminology and Standards

What are the advantages of standardizing coding terminologies? And what is the best way to achieve consistency for information systems?

As Dr. John Glaser notes in the “What Is Health Informatics?” media presentation (assigned in Week 1), a group of physicians may use many different terms to describe one patient’s painful experience. This simple example can be extrapolated to guide your thinking about the obstacles that have arisen for information system development because of the varied and complex nature of health care.

In this week’s Discussion, you evaluate the interoperability and coding challenges encountered in today’s health care organizations.

To prepare:
Think about how controlled terminology and standards facilitate information sharing, for example, sharing data between an emergency care clinic and a pharmacy or between a primary care physician’s office and a specialist’s office.

Reflect on the national health IT agenda as presented in the Learning Resources.

Consider challenges health care providers are facing in light of the national health IT agenda related to sharing data across information systems and/or controlled terminology standards. What strategies could a health care organization use to address interoperability challenges? Conduct additional research as necessary to determine possible solutions.
Write a cohesive response that addresses the following:
Evaluate the challenges that health care organizations may face when sharing data across systems.

Using your professional experience and/or information gathered through research, provide at least two specific examples of interoperability challenges.

Propose at least two strategies a health care organization might implement to address interoperability challenges.

Readings

Course Text:Nursing Informatics: Where Technology and Caring Meet
Chapter 13, “Standards and Interoperability”

This chapter introduces the definition, standards, and challenges of interoperability. The authors also detail the impact that interoperable systems will likely have on the future of electronic health records (EHRs) in response to the national health IT agenda.

Course Text: American Nurses Association (2015). Nursing informatics: Scope and standards of practice (2nd ed.). Silver Spring, MD: Author.
“Trends in Care Delivery Models and Innovation” (pp. 63-66)
This excerpt gives examples of projects that are being used to accelerate informatics implementations in organizations.