Electronic Medical Record Sharing Is Hurt by Business Rivalries

The bottom line is that government can play a tremendous role in leveling the playing field. Gov't can incentivize behavior any number of ways (taxes, certifications are two that come to mind) towards cooperation. As it stands there can be no question that vendors and institutions are disincentivized to share data. My recommendation is the following[0]:

"At it's core the government need only do one thing to encourage innovation in the interoperability space and it is this:

- The government, by means of regulation and incentive, ensure that any vendor of data systems that create or store data make adequate interoperability features and documentation available for said system.

I call this the Core Mandate. The core mandate must be unequivocal with no loopholes. What do I mean by "interoperability features"? Simply:

-If a system creates data, the ability to read that data is fully described in documentation. -If a system stores data, the vendor will provide an API and/or SDK, with accompanying documentation, such that authenticated requests may create, read, update or delete that data programmatically as appropriate.

A system is defined as any software application or hardware device."

[0] http://siculars.posthaven.com/health-data-integration-regula...