The initiative, which has received support from close to a dozen healthcare organizations, is the latest in a string of programs aimed at supporting nationwide interoperability.
The Sequoia Project is partnering with the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) on a new initiative aimed at pushing healthcare organizations farther down the interoperability path.
The Data Usability Taking Root Movement is designed to "make health data more useful" by encouraging organizations to follow guidance posted by the Sequoia Project Interoperability Matters Data Usability Workgroup.
“Over three years, more than 260 health organizations worked together through The Sequoia Project to develop practical guidance to make health data more useful for healthcare providers, health IT vendors, public health, health information exchanges, and patients,” Mariann Yeager, the Sequoia Project's CEO, said in a press release. “It’s time to put this guidance into action for the public good.”
“Implementers choose to work on areas that matter most to them,” added Didi Davis, the group's vice president of informatics, conformance, and interoperability. “For some, this could mean working on data provenance and traceability of change, data integrity and trust, or data tagging and searchability. For others, it could mean effective use of codes, reducing the impact of duplicates, effective use of narrative, or any combination they choose.”
Close to a dozen healthcare groups have pledged to support the initiative, including the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA), Epic, HCA, Health Gorilla, and Optum.
Several virtual events are planned this summer, leading up to a Data Usability Taking Root Summit on September 6 in Washington DC.
“Data usability is part of the DNA of the health information profession," AHIMA Chief Executive Officer Amy Mosser said in the press release. "We support this work not only because the public and private sectors together have made significant strides in health data interoperability, but because for over 96 years, AHIMA has been laser-focused on ensuring the completeness and usefulness of health data. Implementation of data usability guidance on a national scale will promote consistency across technologies that share data, at a time when more data are available and shared than ever before.”
The effort is the latest in a series of projects aimed at establishing a nationwide health information
Eric Wicklund is the associate content manager and senior editor for Innovation at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The Data Usability Taking Root Movement aims to "make health data more useful," by committing to guidance published by The Sequoia Project Interoperability Matters Data Usability Workgroup.
Supporting organizations will focus on improving the usability of data received from other organizations within their workflows by making that data computable and actionable.
Several virtual events are planned for this summer, leading up to a Data Usability Taking Root Summit on September 6 in Washington DC