Hospital information systems interoperability in Iran

Interoperability is needed when the Hospital Information System (HIS) data should be combined and shared with different systems. This study was aimed to determine the semantic and technical interoperability of hospital information systems of Iran’s health care centers and propose guidelines to create and develop interoperability of these centers. This descriptive study was conducted on companies, which were qualified to receive performance appraisal certificate of HIS softwares from statistics and information technology office of health ministry. Standard questionnaire and checklist were used to collect information in the first and second steps. List of companies, which provided and produced HIS in Iran, was obtained, and then a self-administered questionnaire was sent for them. Then, a health care center was selected from each company randomly, and its current HIS interoperability was evaluated. Data were analyzed using SPSS 16. Based on the results, all companies were used Microsoft windows and SQL server database in their HIS with consideration to technical interoperability. Also, the most frequent corporate programming language was Visual C Sharp (46.7%) and Visual Basic (40%), respectively. From semantic interoperability aspect, the most frequent terminology systems were ICD-10 (86.7%), ICD-9CM (66.7%), and CPT (66.7%), respectively. For standard messaging, 60%, 46.7% and 33.3% used XML, DICOM, and HL7 in order. Health system interoperability is divided into two semantic and technical parts. At the present, there is not any standard for electronic health record (EHR) to provide full interoperability. HIS templates should be provided in order to make a national standard for EHR. Therefore, it is necessary to have standard template for semantic and technical interoperability in EHR national exchanges.