Interoperability in Electronic Medical Records

Abstract: Electronic Medical Records (EMR) is the vital and basic part of construction digitizing hospital. However the systems are well-known for their interoperability problems and a Swedish evaluation from 2010 concluded it to be the most frequent obstacle in workflow. We then wondered what techniques the organizations used to solve the problem to understand if the organizations use the right solution to address the right problem. The paper introduces a broad approach into the distributed Electronic Medical Records (EMR) domain of Sweden. It also provides a thorough literature review that explains what Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and the interoperability concept are, as well as the technical solutions available for achieving interoperability in Electronic Medical Records. The summary of this review rendered a research model with criteria’s for a fully-functional working interoperability solution. The main research was carried out as semi-structured interviews with key personnel in the IT department within two separate Swedish hospitals under the county council of Skåne. The analyzis and discussion that followed from the empirical investigation found that the region is implementing a standard for medical terminology, new databases to store the medical records and one common interface to access all EMR system. However the findings also showed that the interface is founded upon a technical solution that is unsuitable. Our general conclusion from this research showed that the solution used in the studied healthcare organizations didn’t meet the criteria’s in our research model and does not correspond to the needs of the organizations. This conclusion also shows that more research in the topic has to be done to provide healthcare organizations with supporting guidelines about the interoperability because they don’t understand the problem area.