This work was supported by the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) of Scotland grant CZH/4/773, the UK Medical Research Council and the University of Dundee work through the provision of a stipend for KL and from the Health Services Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen, which is core funded by the CSO of the Scottish Government Health Directories. We are grateful to all the participants who assisted in this study: F Althabe, A-W Chan, D Altman, D Bratton, E Brass, M Campbell, G Forbes, B Gaglio, R Glasgow, H Hobbelen, S Hopewell, J Krishnan, D Riddle, J Segal, D Steinfort, P Tugwell, SN Van der Veer, VA. Welch, C Witt. ; Peer reviewed ; Postprint
A workshop "Electronic Health Records and Pulmonary Function Data: Developing an Interoperability Roadmap" was held at the American Thoracic Society 2019 International Conference. "Interoperability" is defined as is the ability of different information-technology systems and software applications to directly communicate, exchange data, and use the information that has been exchanged. At present, pulmonary function test (PFT) equipment is not required to be interoperable with other clinical data systems, including electronic health records (EHRs). For this workshop, we assembled a diverse group of experts and stakeholders, including representatives from patient-advocacy groups, adult and pediatric general and pulmonary medicine, informatics, government and healthcare organizations, pulmonary function laboratories, and EHR and PFT equipment and software companies. The participants were tasked with two overarching Aobjectives: 1) identifying the key obstacles to achieving interoperability of PFT systems and the EHR and 2) recommending solutions to the identified obstacles. Successful interoperability of PFT data with the EHR impacts the full scope of individual patient health and clinical care, population health, and research. The existing EHR–PFT device platforms lack sufficient data standardization to promote interoperability. Cost is a major obstacle to PFT–EHR interoperability, and incentives are insufficient to justify the needed investment. The current vendor–EHR system lacks sufficient flexibility, thereby impeding interoperability. To advance the goal of achieving interoperability, next steps include identifying and standardizing priority PFT data elements. To increase the motivation of stakeholders to invest in this effort, it is necessary to demonstrate the benefits of PFT interoperability across patient care and population health.
