The Office of the National Coordinator is currently working to streamline its requirements for clinical document formats in an effort to simplify electronic health record exchange standards.
Government Health IT reports that officials are currently working to consolidate feedback from various sources into one coherent set of guidelines that software companies can follow to ensure that their technology meets minimum standards.
The move comes as providers have reported having difficulty sharing clinical summaries of patient medications and problems due to a lack of common language and standardized data elements. The goal is to provide a clear set of standards that can create this language without setting up a whole new list of requirements similar to the meaningful use rules.
"The reason for using a framework is to solve point problems and to be able to use those point problem solutions in a wider context," Arien Malec, who is coordinating the ONCs efforts, told the news source.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society has said that interoperability is at the heart of unlocking the potential of health information technology.