Healthcare Interoperability

and Standards: Making different applications talk

Rene James P. Balandra Jr.

MS Health Informatics (Bioinformatics Track)

HI 201 – Overview of Health Informatics

Driving Question

How can healthcare

institutions adopt

standards to

ensure

interoperability?

Assumptions

• All organizations and systems DO NOT SHARE a common

platform or database.They are all disparate systems that need to

share information.

• There are NO Funding, Staffing or Technology problems or

challenges. All projects have all the money they need. All projects

have the correct staffing number and skills. All hardware, software

and connections work perfectly.

• Just focus on INTEROPERABILITY REQUIREMENTS.

Scenario

• Scenario 4:

Several city and municipal health units in Zamboanga have a

basic EMR called BasicHealth. DOH wants to get all cases of

Hypertension, Diabetes Mellitus and Cancer for their national

registry. The DOH registry is an online system using software

called RegistryTech.

Why Scenario 4?

• Among the five scenarios to choose from, the scenario above is

the one I’m most familiar with. As stated in a previous post, my

work with the National Telehealth Center exposed me to the

intricacies of our local public health sector. Coming into MSHI with

an IT background, I also lack knowledge and practical experience

in order to expound on any of the other possible scenarios.

Organizations Involved

• Department Of Health

• Regional Center for Health

Development

• Provincial Health Office

• Municipal Health Office/Rural Health

Unit

– Barangay Health Stations

Applications Involved

• BasicHealth

• RegistryTech

• Interoperability System

Interoperability Project Goals

• Workload Prioritization

• Faster information flow

• Accuracy and Quality Data

• Use of Standards

Workload Prioritization

• More working hours in the practice

of health care as opposed to

writing and making reports

• Encode only once; Use many

times.

Faster information flow

• Information flow as soon as a

patient comes in and is

reported.

• Seeing the data trends and

discrepancies the earliest

time possible.

Accuracy and Quality Data

• Duplication of patients will also be

lessened

• Restrictions in inputting data to

check the validity of the data

before it enters the system

• Easier verification due to faster

means to identify and isolate

scrupulous data.

Use of Standards

• Make sure that both systems are

referring to the same thing

– ICD-10 Codes

– Philippine National Drug

Formulary (PNDF)

– Health Facility Codes

Data Elements To be Transferred

– Patient Information

• Birthday

• Sex

– Observations including but

not limited to the ff:

• Diagnosis

• Patient History related to the hypertension, diabetes

mellitus and cancer diseases

• Risk Factors related to the hypertension, diabetes

mellitus and cancer diseases

• Medication History

Flow Of Information

• Trigger Event:

Information and data

will be transferred as

soon as the patient has

concluded his consult

and all his information

had been entered into

BasicHealth.

Thank you!