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Electronic Health Information Exchange — Way More Complicated Than Getting Money from an ATM

March 14, 2011 /

“If banks can exchange funds electronically through the ATM system, why can’t my doctor and hospital exchange information electronically?”

Keith Boone’s concise article “A Doctor is Not a Bank” explains why this conclusion about healthcare interoperability is overly-simplistic.

…and Keith’s article reminded me of an even deeper explanation presented in the National Academies’ Frontiers of Engineering series — Why Health Information Technology Doesn’t Work, by Elmer Bernstam and Todd Johnson. The table below summarizes the differences between health data and banking data.

 Click here to view a larger version of the graphic.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to republish this post with attribution.

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19 Comments

  1. Vince Kuraitis on March 14, 2011 at 7:23 am

    Electronic Health Information Exchange — Way More Complicated Than Getting Money from an ATM http://bit.ly/i6rDlv #HealthIT #hcsm



  2. Nate Osit on March 14, 2011 at 7:27 am

    RT @VinceKuraitis: Electronic Health Information Exchange — Way More Complicated Than Getting Money from an ATM http://bit.ly/i6rDlv #He …



  3. Keith W. Boone on March 14, 2011 at 7:33 am

    RT @VinceKuraitis: Electronic Health Information Exchange — Way More Complicated Than Getting Money from an ATM http://bit.ly/i6rDlv #He …



  4. EHRoutlook on March 14, 2011 at 7:39 am

    RT @VinceKuraitis: Electronic Health Information Exchange — Way More Complicated Than Getting Money from an ATM http://bit.ly/i6rDlv #He …



  5. Robert S. Miller, MD on March 14, 2011 at 7:48 am

    Love Table 1! RT @VinceKuraitis: Electronic Health Info Exchange — Way More Complicated Than Getting $$ from an ATM http://bit.ly/i6rDlv



  6. Netspective Health on March 14, 2011 at 8:20 am

    Electronic Health Information Exchange — Way More Complicated Than Getting… http://goo.gl/fb/JYKjl #HIT #HealthIT



  7. Aparna M K on March 14, 2011 at 8:27 am

    Electronic Health Information Exchange — Way More Complicated Than Getting Money from an ATM | e-CareManagement Blog http://dlvr.it/KCJlh



  8. Janice McCallum on March 14, 2011 at 8:33 am

    RT @motorcycle_guy: A Doctor is Not a Bank http://goo.gl/fb/RY3qz #healthit |See comments & @vincekuraitis's site: http://bit.ly/eVBXKd



  9. Charles Webster, MD on March 14, 2011 at 8:52 am

    RT @VinceKuraitis: Electronic Health Information Exchange — Way More Complicated Than Getting Money from an ATM http://bit.ly/i6rDlv #He …



  10. Charles Webster, MD on March 14, 2011 at 9:05 am

    Y can't #EHR #EMR B easy as #ATM http://bit.ly/i6rDlv #HealthIT #hcsm Via @VinceKuraitis < also more complex data model & diverse multimedia



  11. Charles Webster, MD on March 14, 2011 at 9:11 am

    Than ATM, #EHR #EMR #workflow more variable implicit exception-laden http://bit.ly/i6rDlv #HealthIT Via @VinceKuraitis < Rgument 4 #ACM #BPM



  12. Perficient Health IT on March 14, 2011 at 11:03 am

    Our vote for understatement of the year: #HIE — Way More Complicated Than Getting Money from an ATM http://bit.ly/enc3at



  13. Charles Webster on March 14, 2011 at 3:05 pm

    Y can't #EHR #EMR B easy as #ATM http://bit.ly/i6rDlv #HealthIT #hcsm Via @VinceKuraitis < also more complex data model & diverse multimedia



  14. Keith W. Boone on March 14, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    Vince Kuratis made some good points too: http://bit.ly/gvfLQI #HITsm



  15. Keith W. Boone on March 14, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    Vince Kuratis made some good points too: http://bit.ly/gvfLQI #HITsm



  16. Nate Osit on March 14, 2011 at 7:31 pm

    I did like the chart posted by @VinceKuraitis http://bit.ly/i6rDlv It shows the qualitative differences in data #HITsm



  17. Nate Osit on March 14, 2011 at 7:31 pm

    I did like the chart posted by @VinceKuraitis http://bit.ly/i6rDlv It shows the qualitative differences in data #HITsm



  18. Nanette Nuessle on March 14, 2011 at 7:47 pm

    RT @motorcycle_guy: Vince Kuratis made some good points too: http://bit.ly/gvfLQI #HITsm



  19. Shannon Smith on March 14, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    I agree with your argument that healthcare is more complex that the simple banking transactions used as a comparison. However, a more comparable analysis might be that of a quant driven fund that has detailed analysis, predictions and actions and thoughts of intelligent people.

    I attended the McDermott PE conference last week and the speakers kept talking about the challenge of standardizing processes across a healthcare system and that it is one of the hardest things to do. Much of the work that we do in healthcare can be boiled down into best practices that would enable more people to perform the same task consistently well, but many of us in the industry resist it because standardization requires change, loss of control/power or at least the feeling and in some case, loss of pricing control and/or market share. Technology alone can’t solve our problems. As an industry we need to establish standards that will allow information to flow more freely and software companies need to let it flow freely.