Dive Brief:
- The GAO has issued a report detailing the five largest barriers to interoperability at the request of Congress to examine efforts by non-federal government groups.
- There were 18 initiatives reviewed, each described various efforts to achieve or facilitate EHR interoperability. However, GAO found most remain works in progress.
- The five main barriers include: insufficient health data standards, varied state privacy rules, difficulty in accurately matching all correct records to the correct patient, costs in achieving the goals, and a need for governance and trust among entities to facilitate sharing health information.
Dive Insight:
The study found 15 of the 18 initiatives are addressing insufficient standards required to achieve EHR interoperability.
Close to half of the initiatives are developing instructions for implementing standards in ways that enhance interoperability. Dr. Jacob Reider, former deputy national coordinator and chief medical officer at ONC, criticized the report in a tweet posted Oct. 1, according to Healthcare IT News: "@Jacobr: GAO report: incomplete research + lazy reporting propogates political fiction. Sad."