How Health IT Interoperability Will Impact Healthcare in 2021

As the healthcare industry embraces a new year, it is taking the lessons it learned in 2020 to move forward. A focus on health IT interoperability could be the crux of moving toward better public health reporting, patient matching, and interoperability in 2021.

“In the general world of information sharing, one of the biggest areas of interest for me was watching the intense engagement of federal agencies, such as the ONC, FDA, and CDC quickly pivoting from trying to do things for individual patients, to trying to manage cohorts and populations, and understanding the general health of a populace,” Tom Skelton, CEO of Surescripts.

Accurate patient matching and enhanced interoperability ensure the correct patient will get the correct vaccine and the patient will get two doses. The success of both will rely on providers, public health officials, and pharmacists having access to patient data, including vaccine records from databases.