Me thinks the only option will be that somewhere in the future Unc Sam says "...here is the source code/data base/exchange format that will need to be used for all electronic medical records here in the U.S.of A, you can make your EMR look as pretty as you want as long as it fits the database/exchange format.
Leaving it up to private enterprise doesn't seem like it will happen without a large price tag applied to the end user to pay for multiple interfaces.
Koby, I agree 100%. I am chronically furious that the ONE thing the government could have done when deciding to meddle in the EHR world was insist on a common data standard. Now we have this tower of Babel, just like the early days of word processors where Word Perfect could not read a Word document could not read an Apple Writer, etc. If you see a patient of mine, your notes should appear seamlessly in my record, in order, with appropriate labs in HL-7 format; not just dumped into imported items in a lump of PDF files.
