Healthcare interoperability — lessons learned from the manufacturing standards sector

The high cost of healthcare in America is well-known, with imperfect interoperability adding as much as $77.8 billion/year to that cost, according to one study. One of the principal causes of this high cost is the large amount of ldquopaperworkzrdquo - the administrative expenses incurred for each medical procedure. While the debate continues about whether the country would be better off with a single-payer medical system or the current private insurance approach, there are a number of ways to reduce the administrative costs without excessive risk. These costs are essentially about getting information in the right form, to the right place, at the right time - a challenge that is by no means unique to the healthcare industry. This presentation identifies some of the approaches that have been successful in the manufacturing sector to make the sharing of information - interoperability - more efficient. Manufacturing technology has been developing and improving for decades. Principles like lean manufacturing, paperless design, ISO 9000 performance practices and Taguchi methods are a given for today's major manufacturers. With trends toward global manufacturing and outsourcing, practices have now evolved to Internetbased communication of engineering designs, inventory levels, purchase orders, and a wide variety of other logistical, financial and technical data. Supporting all this, a suite of standards has been developed, deployed, and winnowed down to some that really help, leaving others that seemed promising but failed to meet expectations by the wayside.