Linking the health data system in the U.S.:Challenges to the benefits

In order to improve patient care in the United States there,the government made a mandate called HIE(Health Information Exchange).This order was created from the belief that sharing digital health in-formation between,across,and within health communities will improve one's healthcare experience across their lifespan.Patient health information,i.e.the personal health record,should be shareable between healthcare providers;such as private practice physicians,home health agencies,hospitals and nursing care facilities.Most of the U.S.hospitals now have electronic health records,however,with a lack of standards for structuring health information and unified communication protocols to share health information across providers,only a small percentage of U.S.hospitals engage in computerized HIE.In order to understand barriers and facilitators in the U.S.of HIE adoption,we reviewed the published research literature between 2010 and 2015.Our search yielded 664 articles from Medline,PsychInfo,Global health,InSpec,Scopus and Business Source Complete databases.Thirty-nine articles met our inclusion criteria.This article presents the compiled organizational and end user barriers and facilitators along with suggested methods to achieve continuity of care through HIE.

Possibility of Enhancing Digital Health Interoperability in Uganda through FAIR Data

The digital health landscape in Uganda is plagued by problems with interoperability and sustainability, due to fragmentation and a lack of integrated digital health solutions. This can be partly attributed to the absence of policies on the interoperability of data, as well as the fact that there is no common goal to make digital data and data infrastructure interoperable across the data ecosystem. The promulgation of the FAIR Guidelines in 2016 brought together various data stewards and stakeholders to adopt a common vision on data management and enable greater interoperability. This article explores the potential of enhancing digital health interoperability through FAIR by analysing the digital solutions piloted in Uganda and their sustainability. It looks at the factors that are currently hindering interoperability by examining existing digital health solutions in Uganda, such as the Digital Health Atlas Uganda(DHA-U) and Uganda Digital Health Dashboard(UDHD). The level of FAIRness of the two dashboards was determined using the FAIR Evaluation Services tool. Analysis was also carried out to discover the level of FAIRness of the digital health solutions within the dashboards and the most frequently used software applications and data standards by the different digital health interventions in Uganda.