Electronic Health Records and Pulmonary Function Data: Developing an Interoperability Roadmap. An Official American...

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Medical Device Interoperability
• Respiratory Medicine

Background:

• Pulmonary function test (PFT) equipment currently lacks mandatory interoperability with electronic health records (EHRs).
• Interoperability enables seamless data exchange and utilization between different health IT systems.
• This limitation impacts patient care, population health, and research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify obstacles hindering PFT-EHR interoperability.
• To recommend solutions for achieving PFT-EHR data exchange.
• To develop a roadmap for PFT-EHR interoperability.

Main Methods:

• A workshop convened diverse stakeholders: patients, clinicians, informaticians, government, and industry representatives.
• Participants identified key challenges and proposed solutions for PFT-EHR interoperability.
• The workshop focused on data standardization, cost, and system flexibility.

Main Results:

• Key obstacles include insufficient data standardization in EHR-PFT platforms and high costs.
• Lack of stakeholder incentives and inflexible vendor-EHR systems impede progress.
• Standardizing priority PFT data elements is a crucial next step.

Conclusions:

• PFT-EHR interoperability is essential for comprehensive patient care, population health, and research.
• Addressing data standardization, cost, and system flexibility is critical.
• Demonstrating the benefits of interoperability will drive stakeholder investment and adoption.