Challenges and Recommendations to Healthcare Data Exchange in an Interoperable Environment

Abstract

Sharing of health data between independent organizations, each using customized Electronic Health Records (EHR) management systems or Healthcare Information System (HIS) encompasses major concerns. It requires an integrated interoperable environment or interface commonly understood by end-users of healthcare domain. The sheer number of systems, standards, procedures and system developers seriously hinders interoperability. Developers need to adhere to the standards while designing such system. Developing standardized interfaces would enable seamless communication and transfer of required EHR between disparate systems. The paper after giving a detailed overview of interoperability, identifies the challenges to Health Informatics data-exchange in interoperable environment and recommends some viable solutions in this direction. This paper provides a glance at different approaches of designing interoperable models and illustrates the healthcare models designed on such approaches. The study also includes available set of vocabularies, formats and standards specifically designed for the purpose. Considering the Health environment, protecting the confidentiality and illegal disclosure during transfer of EHR between organizations, is a serious concern. Vendors incorporate customized and vendor-dependent security attributes while designing the application, resulting in major challenge of securely sharing of data. The paper includes available security controls and gaps accruing due to interoperability and recommends the need of robust security control improving accessibility and availability of EHR at the required place by the authorized user.