The current cost of developing health data exchange interfaces can be as high as $30,000 to accommodate variations in standards, according to health IT experts.
But when health IT vendors and providers begin adopting standards now being crafted as part of the government health IT stimulus effort, costs for interoperability will plummet. Or at least that's the bet.
"We know that we won't get precisely plug and play--this is a journey," noted Dr. John Halamka, chairman of the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) a standards group set-up in 2005 by the Health and Human Services Department.
"But each year, we will get more constrained," he said. "We are going from a $20,000 -$30,000 venture hopefully to $5,000-$10,000."
Speaking at a Sept. 8 HITSP board meeting, Halamka said that costs of a software interface between disparate systems could fall dramatically as vendors reduce variations by applying standards for meaningful use of electronic health records.
Ultimately, a system from one vendor would be able to share data with another firm's system without a huge effort.
"We want to get enough specificity in the current set of regulations so that a certified EHR will likely with modest effort be able to speak with another EHR," Halamka said.
HITSP has recommended standards to the Health IT Standards Committee, which is advising national health IT coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal on standards that will support meaningful use. Halamka is also the vice chair of the standards committee.
The committee's work groups on Sept. 15 will release details on standards for clinical operations, clinical quality and security and privacy for meaningful use. A matrix for each work group will contain required functions, standards to provide those capabilities, timeframes for establishing each standard, as well as certification criteria and guidance to adopt the standards.
The guidance will be general enough to be useful for various technical architectures and situations, yet specific enough to support performance testing, Halamka said in the HITSP meeting.
Aneesh Chopra, the administration's chief technology officer and a member of the HIT standards committee, will lead a new committee workgroup focusing on health IT adoption and use. The job of the new workgroup is to tackle the issues of applying standards in the real world, Halamka said.
For example, if vendors or hospitals have problems implementing the standards, more guidance or education or more work on the standard may be called for, Halamka said. "This work group will be starting up real soon," he said.
