In June, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology called on others to join it in developing a roadmap to health IT interoperability, according to a blog on the Modern Healthcare website.
In intensive-care units today, there can be up to 10 medical devices monitoring a patient's vital signs. But because these devices can't speak to one another, they can't seamlessly share information.
This results in increased patient risk and clinical inefficiencies, because clinicians must manually enter large amounts of data.
"We should all be challenged by the ONC's call to action to enable our healthcare system to provide the same integrated 24/7 service as the banking, retail and cellular industries," the blog said.
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