Interoperability Is Crucial in Sustainable Health Care Models

As pharmacists take on more clinical care, having access to clinical information on patients is crucial. In today’s current health care ecosystem, though, that’s tricky: “You’ve got different pharmacy technology involved in different pharmacies across the country…but it’s not scaled,” explained Melanie Marcus in an interview with Drug Topics.

Marcus is the Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at Surescripts. She sat down with Drug Topics at the 2024 National Association of Chain Drug Stores Total Store Expo, held August 17 to August 19, 2024, in Boston, Massachusetts.

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“The electronic health record side of the world has been working on this issue of interoperability for years,” she said, “and Surescripts has been working with EHRs for years to do that.” In 2023, Surescripts exchanged almost 2 billion clinical records across EHRs across the country.

But, Marcus added, “We all know as patients, that’s not good enough.” That’s where federal stakeholders come in: Provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act and the Trust Exchange Framework and Common Agreement have led to the creation of Qualified Health Information Networks, or QHINs. “These QHINs will allow health information to be exchanged with their participants [and] once that happens, the QHINs will exchange clinical information amongst themselves, so that all of the participants have access to the clinical information that they need about patients,” Marcus explained.

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