What are the obstacles to health information technology use?
There are technical and policy challenges to overcome. Most providers and buyers have some—and often multiple—systems in place. The challenge of making these different systems work together, both within and across providers—interoperability—is an obstacle to realizing the promise of health information technology. Interoperability has technical dimensions. Legacy systems—information systems from various eras that store data using differing media and formats—and different sets of definitions for terms used by the data systems must be matched up. Interoperability also has dimensions that policymakers may be able to address, however. Two major obstacles to the rapid flow of information are consumer concerns that personal health information will be misused, and provider and carrier concerns that information about their operations will become available to competitors. Of key concern for consumers are the privacy and security of their health data. Sensitive information related to dire or stig
