While many healthcare experts and leaders agree that better interoperability would improve healthcare overall, there are common challenges that healthcare organizations tend to face as they work on making their data and systems more interoperable. Let’s explore those challenges and how organizations can overcome them:

Disjointed coordination

Improving interoperability requires strong coordination between different organizations, regulators and leaders as well as coordination within organizations. Regulators provide standards and rules for healthcare organizations to follow but organizations that want to be proactive about interoperability should consider creating a dedicated interoperability strategy and make interoperability planning a priority.

Limited budgets

Not all organizations have the financial or technical resources they need to invest in the technical resources needed to build a truly interoperable system. There may be some government grants available to update health records systems, so organizations should check to see if they’re eligible. Many cloud vendors also offer pay-as-you-go payment models that could make technical expenses more affordable and predictable.

Diverse technology needs

Organizations need to follow different rules and regulations depending on what type of care they provide and where they're located, so many organizations have highly customized data. Organizations can help connect different internal and external systems through a hybrid cloud platform that gives them options to combine and integrate their data without sacrificing the customizations they need.

Legacy systems

Healthcare organizations with older legacy systems face the dual challenges of modernizing their systems while also meeting interoperability requirements. Organizations can meet both goals using a hybrid cloud approach to extract data from legacy systems and make it more accessible for modern applications and programs. This approach gives organizations the option to keep data moving while they work on updating their systems.