AAMI/FDA Summit Identifies Challenges to Interoperability
Misaligned incentives and a lack of standardization are just some of the barriers to interoperability that more than 200 stakeholders identified at a summit hosted by AAMI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The Oct. 2-3 AAMI/FDA Interoperability Summit is being held in Herndon, VA, outside of Washington, D.C. David Classen, MD, said during his keynote address that considering how people interact with technology and medical devices is very important in pinpointing the problem with interoperability.
“You can’t look at our technology alone,” said Classen, chief medical information officer at Pascal Metrics, a Washington, D.C.-based patient safety consulting firm, and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Utah. “You have to look at the larger intersection of other aspects of the healthcare system, including the people who operate it and the patients who receive it.“
The summit is covering multiple topics, including design considerations, regulatory developments, best practices from other industries, research gaps, and case studies from the field.
After each presentation, the audience—a diverse mix of of clinical engineers, information technology (IT) vendors, manufacturers, regulators, clinicians, and other experts—offered their opinions and asked questions, giving the entire summit a lively and engaging atmosphere.
The attendees identified poor standardization of interoperable products and interfaces as one obstacle to achieving interoperability. A failure to incorporate more “systems” principles into healthcare was also cited as a significant barrier.
To illustrate that point, Matthew Weinger, a member of AAMI’s Board of Directors, talked about the construction and use of an airplane. Many vendors are involved in its construction, but the airline is responsible for the final product.
“In healthcare, this integrated systems approach with high levels of interconnectivity and standardization just doesn’t exist,” said Weinger, professor of anesthesiology, biomedical informatics, and medical education at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, TN. “We need to figure out a way to get there.”
There are standards efforts underway. For example, AAMI and UL recently agreed to develop a suite of interoperability safety standards.
HL7 will offer its standards and profiles free of charge to reduce the barrier of implementation, Charles Jaffe, MD, CEO of the global IT organization, told the audience.
The high cost of interoperability was another problem.
“There are profit margins that don’t encourage interoperability,” David Muntz, principal deputy national coordinator at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), said during his presentation.
Richard Swim, manager of clinical technology at Baylor Health Care System in Dallas, TX, gave an example.
“Our challenge is around cost of implementation, and replacing legacy devices that might not be designed to communicate,” said Swim, one of many summit attendees who participated in the post-session discussions. “It costs money to implement all of the systems that you need to flow in the data.“
At the end of the summit, attendees will develop a list of priorities, or “clarion themes.” An action plan will be developed at a later date to address the themes.
Immediately after the summit, AAMI is hosting a two-day wireless workshop to discuss the issues surrounding wireless technologies in hospitals.
Posted: October 3, 2012