Whose Interoperability Problem is this?

As I’ve often said, the paperless medical office is as likely as the paperless bathroom. This photo from my practice yesterday shows the volume of new documents (most clinical notes/records) we send for scanning—every week! We need better #interoperability pic.twitter.com/KZty4d6EBJ

— Daniel Z. Sands, MD (@DrDannySands) March 2, 2019

Is this the challenge of an EHR Vendor? Or a medical practice working with other medical practices who insist on sending faxes and paper copies, perhaps because they don't have some method of sending these over a computer network using digital communication standards such as Direct, or IHE Cross Enterprise Document sharing to the receiving practice?

Yes, we need more inter-connected medical practices.  But is that due to the lack of available interoperability options or the lack of desire to implement them, and if the latter, why is that the case?

Yes, this is an interoperability, but here, we have a question related to workflow:

Workflow related to implementation.
Workflow related to changing the behavior of others in your referral network.
Workflow related to changing your own behavior.

If this practice isn't acceptable, why would you continue to accept it?

Problems like the one Danny illustrated quite well above aren't necessarily due to a lack of technology (or standards, or interoperability) to solve them.  Some times they are simply because the right person hasn't asked the right questions.

Some thoughtful questions to ask:

1. What other ways could this be done?
2. Why can't we do it another way?
3. How much does it cost to do it the way we are doing now?
4. What might it cost to do it a different way?
5. What could we do with the savings?

   Keith