At an ONC advisory committee meeting yesterday, Carl Dvorak, president of EHR giant EPIC, raised eyebrows by suggesting a nationwide record locator service — essentially a national interface for EHR vendors and providers.
Politico Pro reports that such a development could be a “key tool of interoperability.”
That Epic could be on board with the laudable but challenging goal of interoperability is a welcome surprise, given that it has largely stayed on the sidelines and is known for being more insular.
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From Politico’s Morning eHealth letter:
“I was surprised, but it was actually great to hear Carl suggest that,” said Jitin Asnaani, director of technology standards and policy at athenahealth, and one of the participants on the Interoperability and HIE workgroup call.
Dvorak suggested that such a network should be established and operated by CMS, perhaps a curious suggestion given that the agency isn’t known for developing IT infrastructure. Nevertheless, Epic’s interest was welcomed.
“I was excited to hear him endorse the idea of a record locator service, because that’s what Commonwell provides,”Asnaani was quoted as saying.
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The Commonwell Alliance consists of well-know vendors, including Cerner, athena, Allsripts and others. Notably, Epic is not a member.
Politico quoted Asnaani as saying:
“It’s an interesting point of view – there’s a private organization doing it already but you’d rather have the government go do it? But it was very good to hear a very smart person who we all regard highly say that we all need this service – in a forum where we were discussing what we need to do to create interoperability over the next five years. … I was thrilled.”
