IBM To Announce Interoperable EHR Software
IBM officials on Wednesday are expected to announce the donation of a software code that could allow interoperability of different electronic health records systems technologies nationwide, the Oakland Tribune reports. The technology, developed at IBM's San Jose Research Center, will be donated to the Eclipse Foundation's Open Healthcare Framework project, a consortium working to build a national EHR infrastructure.
According to Joe Jasinski, program director of IBM's health care and life sciences division, the software might allow for the creation of an EHR network similar to the Internet that would have no central depository but would allow doctors to access patient records across state lines. The software would allow different computer and software systems to communicate.
IBM said the software "provides a mechanism to connect isolated islands of information that today reside throughout the health care system to a Health Information Exchange" (Grady, Oakland Tribune, 8/9).