Bradley Merrill Thompson, a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in the Bloomberg BNA Health Care Daily Report, in “Government Urged to Avoid Burdening Health-Data Exchange Users,” by James Swann. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
The biggest hurdles facing nationwide interoperability are economic, because health information technology vendors don’t have the economic incentives to drive large-scale interoperability, Bradley Merrill Thompson, a Washington-based health-care attorney with Epstein Becker & Green PC, told Bloomberg BNA Aug. 31.
While there are few technical obstacles to interoperability, it’s hard for vendors to reach an agreement on the parameters of health-data exchange, Thompson said. Each vendor has its own product and is out to maximize its advantage, and there’s little incentive to work with other vendors and engage in consensus building.
However, interoperability will happen because health-care providers and payers will insist upon it, Thompson said. While providers and payers can push for interoperability, they’ll still need help from the government, Thompson said.
“So of necessity government, as both the guardian of the entire health-care system but also as one of the biggest payers, needs to be the driver of discussions around interoperability,” he said.