The health care industry has devoted little attention to the need for greater interoperability of medical device data, according to a report from the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation and FDA, InformationWeek reports.
Report Details
The report stemmed from an October 2012 summit on medical device data interoperability held by AAMI and FDA. Fourteen other organizations participated in the summit, including the:
- Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society;
- Joint Commission; and
- National Institute of Standards and Technology.
The report aims to serve as a "community" document that summarizes the input of summit participants and offers guidance for future conversations about medical device data interoperability.
Focusing on Interoperability of Medical Device Data
The report states, "Many events, publications and conversations have focused on the information side of what technology can do. Little attention to date has been focused on the device side of that connectivity, especially as it relates to patient safety."
It adds, "Getting it right protects patients, contributes to clinical decisions and positive patient outcomes, and improves efficiency," while "[g]etting it wrong introduces significant risk and the likelihood of adverse patient events" (Versel, InformationWeek, 1/22).
The report describes seven themes for achieving the safe interoperability of medical device data, including:
- The use of accepted data interoperability standards to improve the safety, effectiveness and efficiency of medical technology;
- The alignment of incentives, expectations, roles and responsibilities at health care organizations;
- The adoption of a systems engineering approach to help organizations more effectively design and manage medical technology with interoperable data;
- A primary focus on human behavior, creating an understanding of data interoperability "as a sociotechnical system;"
- An effort to clarify regulations related to the interoperability of medical device data;
- The standardization and coordination of clinical workflow to improve return on investment; and
- The sharing of successes and failures related to using data from interoperable medical devices (Rodak, Becker's Hospital Review, 1/17).