Value of Health IT Data Standards

Impact to Patient Care
Health Information Technology (HIT) and Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) are an increasingly important component of modern healthcare sharing health care data between providers and with patients and, thus, improving the quality of health care. Patient-specific results from clinical laboratory testing services comprise a significant portion of any EMR and have an immeasurable impact on diagnostic and treatment decisions made by clinicians. The ability to exchange laboratory orders and results in a standardized way allows for enhanced clarity of the shared information, which in turn reduces errors and unnecessary delays in the laboratory testing and reporting process. Healthcare providers and patients need access to the right information at the right time for the right cost and in a manner that they can understand and use in order to inform their health-related decisions.

Benefit of Interoperability
Access to health information should not be prohibited by boundaries such as location, organization or technical platforms. The goal of interoperability for electronic data exchange is to allow health information to follow a patient where and when it is needed. Collaboration and shared laboratory information across all settings allows providers, patients and laboratories to engage more fully with each other and do so in a timely, efficient and accurate manner. Through the use of data standards and shared vocabularies, all entities can interact in a seamless way in order to unlock laboratory data, not only for the benefit of patient care, but to also significantly impact the ability to correlate and mine data received from multiple sources.

Benefit to the Healthcare Industry
Secure and standards-based electronic exchange of health information will help to lower implementation costs by reducing the resources required for development of customized interfaces and eliminate unnecessary maintenance costs.