"One of the frequently recurring questions is that of portability of
information between different EMR systems. Physicians have a concern
that should they select a specific EMR system, they will be tied to
that system and be unable to transfer that data to another system
should the vendor go out of business or should they just want to move
to a different system.
The concern is well founded. Currently there is no approved data
standard and accepted methodology for clinical information to be
transferred between different systems."
A little bit of progress in this area of standardization would reap tremendous benefits far beyond reducing physicians fears of vendor lock-in -- a core message set would also be a much easier route to effective use of medical data than interoperability of systems would. But that's a story for another time... for the CanadianEMR discussion goto:canadianemr/2004/10/portability_of_.html
