How Improved Interoperability Drives Greater Health Equity
A practitioner perspective by Dr. Steven Lane, Chief Medical Officer, Health Gorilla.
The argument
Cross-institution data exchange can shrink care disparities by giving providers complete patient pictures. But consent-aware privacy safeguards are essential, since sharing sensitive data without protection can expose vulnerable patients to discrimination or harm.
Why we picked it
The HTC editorial desk curates practitioner perspectives that pass a simple test: would a health system executive, product leader, or investor act differently after reading it? This piece by Dr. Steven Lane earns its place - it comes from the operating trenches of health it & interoperability, not the conference stage, and it takes a position specific enough to disagree with.
The bigger picture
The data-infrastructure backdrop makes this conversation timely: TEFCA crossed one billion exchanged health records this summer, up from 10 million in under a year (our coverage), while KLAS reports EHR purchasing fell 40% as capital shifts from record systems to the AI and analytics layered on top of them. Interoperability is no longer the constraint - deciding what to do with flowing data is.
Read it alongside our own reporting in Health IT & Interoperability, where the data behind this debate is covered daily on the HTC Wire.