The current use of the HL7 standard is for the
messaging of data to populate other disparate systems. For example, admissions data
of a patient is also sent to the billing system. The problem with current messaging
systems, such as HL7, is that they duplicate information across systems. Patient
demographic information, for example, can be copied from one system to another,
and maintenance of such data can create more messaging between systems (usually
within an organization).
In Denmark, the examination of EHR use and interoperability has also been an issue
of interest (Bernstein et al., 2005). The Danish Health IT Strategy project??™s goal
is to analyze the variety of grassroots models for EHR information modeling and
informatics. The National Board of Health is currently analyzing the SNOWMED
ontology for use in its EHR. SNOWMED is an ontology that encapsulates classification
systems such as ICD9. As a reference terminology, it is much more
detailed in the medical concepts that it conveys. This level of detailed information
allows the data to be used for quality assurance and resource utilization purposes
and allows the EHR to relay more information than ICD9 coding for diagnoses.
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