View from the EHR Trenches: an Interview with HL7's Chuck Jaffe

Posted by Andy_Updegrove on Feb 22, 2009 7:12 PM EDT
ConsortiumInfo.org Standards Blog; By Andy Updegrove
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The Obama Administration plans to spend over $20 billion of the stimulus bill on open and proprietary software to enable "electronic health records." Just because the money's there, though, doesn't meant that the standards for the technology are. This interview covers what's ready, what's not, and what needs to be done to close the gap.

The number of standard setting organizations (SSOs) from which specifications have been drawn to create Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are legion, due to the complex nature of these goal. Some of the standards utilized are generic, and common to any sophisticated Internet-enabled commercial system. Others are specific to science, but usable generally in paper as well as information technology (IT) based health care systems. Only a few SSOs, however, have taken up the challenge of developing the major components essential and unique to EHRs. One of the oldest and most important is Health Level 7, more commonly referred to as HL7.

HL7 has been at the center of global EHR development since 1987, as well as a key player in the more recent U.S. efforts to design and implement a national EHR system by 2014, a commitment made by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address in January of 2004.

In this interview, HL7 CEO Charles Jaffe, M.D. shares his perspective on what's been accomplished, what remains to be done, and where the critical decisions that will lead to success or failure in creating a national EHR system must be made.

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