At its core, interoperability represents effective information sharing between care settings; organisations; healthcare professionals; and citizens to optimise patient outcomes and quality of care. It is a positive vision but achieving it remains one of the key challenges for HealthTech companies seeking to integrate their digital solutions within the UK NHS healthcare system. There are many reasons why.
One important issue is the lack of consistency in standardisation. Multiple electronic patient record (EPR) systems use different healthcare standards, including HL7v2 and FHIR for example.
They may also be running systems on different versions of the same standard, leading to compatibility issues. Coupled with this, many operational systems lack appropriate integration points for innovative new solutions to be properly included in care pathways, resulting in non-optimal workflows.