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A Foreword: Accelerating Interoperability with USCDI
From the U.S. Progress Point Editorial Board
Aug 03, 2023

Information, and perhaps more specifically data, is the great accelerator of progress and improvement. This is as true in medicine as it is in physics, engineering, education, and just about every other discipline; our ability to understand what is happening enhances and speeds our ability to make it better.

This may seem obvious, but the reality proves otherwise. Consider a typical patient journey; even a standard pathway is likely to be somewhat fragmented, fraught with different doctors, gaps in care due to coverage, a hodgepodge of acute and chronic interactions, and a range of other complexities. The unsurprising result is a system where incomplete health histories are commonplace and timely diagnosis and effective treatment often beyond reach. This is frustrating at best and devastating at worst; consider that the timeline to diagnosis for rare diseases is 3-15 years – an extraordinary and sometimes fatal waiting time for care and relief.

The opportunity to obtain a fuller and easily accessible picture of individual health and needs is at the same time getting closer and more complicated. There is more health data available, through EHRs, personal devices, etc. than ever before, but connecting that data is increasingly hard. Establishing a collaborative environment that satisfies patients’ appetite for a healthcare system that works for them (not in spite of them) and answering the now-federal call for interoperability is an essential step in the right direction.

For patient advocacy groups and medical specialty societies focused on rare diseases in particular, interoperability is paramount. Enhancing data exchange strengthens clinical etiology and quality of life insights allowing for more effective alignment of stakeholders and ultimately better (faster) patient care.

Read more about IQVIA’s perspective on data interoperability, the significance of the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI), and the open (urgent) opportunity for patient advocacy groups and medical specialty societies to be at the leading edge of progress and improvement in healthcare information.

Progress is not an individual activity – it is the fruit of collective thinking and collaborative debate. In that spirit, Progress Point publishes both original work and critical thinking from across the IQVIA organization. The paper referenced in this article was originally published on February 19, 2023 and has been re-published for the benefit of our Progress Point viewers.

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