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When You're the NFL Commish, Getting E-Medical Record Interoperability's a Cinch

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-good-to-be-the-commish dept.

Lucas123 writes: The NFL recently completed the rollout of an electronic medical record (EMR) system and picture archiving & communication system (PACS) that allows mobile access for teams to player's health information at the swipe of a finger — radiological images, GPS tracking information, and detailed health evaluation data back to grade school. But as NFL football players are on the road a lot, often they're not being treated at hospitals or by specialists whose own EMRs are integrated with the NFL's; it's a microcosm of the industry-wide healthcare interoperability issue facing the U.S. today. The NFL, however, found achieving EMR interoperability isn't so much a technological issue as a political one, and if you have publicity on your side, it's not that difficult. NFL CIO Michelle McKenna-Doyle, who led the NFL's EMR rollout, said a call from a team owner to a hospital administrator typically does the trick. Even NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell once made the call to a hospital CEO, "and things started moving in the next couple of days," McKenna-Doyle said. "They're very aware of the publicity."

2 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Now if only he'd deal with blatant cheating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My limited experience with medical records is that it isn't the hospitals that have issues interoperating, it's the vendors of the software. Try and convince them to give you access to the data in their system and they'll ask to sell you some hugely expensive component whose sole purpose is to translate their proprietary data format into a standards-compliant format. (And, again based on my limited experience, the "standard" version is so vague that you basically have to deal with every single vendor's output in a unique way anyway.)

    My experience was limited because in the end we flat-out gave up trying to get data from EMRs because we weren't the NFL and therefore didn't have the clout to make demands.

    Now if only the NFL could use their amazing abilities to rapidly get EMR interoperability to actually punish a team that's been caught repeatedly cheating and fraudulently "won" this year's Superbowl...

    1. Re:Now if only he'd deal with blatant cheating by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, the NFL could get some really good PR out of this.

      If they're able to get every hospital's EMR to work with their system (over time), then that means that their system becomes a gold-standard for interoperability.

      So if they publish the format they use, ANYBODY should be able to use that format and have the records be directly importable into any hospital system where NFL players have been seen.

      If they did this, the NFL could be seen as leaders in healthcare reform, which would definitely help their image on the healthcare front -- and might light some fires under the vendors who are abusing the system as well.