Center for Medical Interoperability Forms Board of Directors

The Center for Medical Interoperability has created a 14-member Board of Directors, a major step advancing its goal to spearhead the creation of a platform to achieve integration of medical technologies in a plug-and-play manner.

“It is vital that all forms of healthcare technology, including medical devices and electronic health records, be able to seamlessly exchange information so that the quality and safety of care can be improved and costs can be reduced,” said Michael M.E. Johns, M.D., founding board chairman.

“The current lack of plug-and-play interoperability between medical devices, applications, enterprise systems and electronic health records hinders physicians from quickly and easily being able to access information that aids in making the best decisions for patients. It can materially compromise patient safety, and result in repeated manual entry of data and other inefficiencies that waste billions of dollars each year,” said Johns, who most recently served as interim executive vice president for medical affairs of the University of Michigan Health System and is a former chancellor of Emory University.

The term “plug-and-play interoperability” refers to the ability of two or more systems to appropriately, seamlessly, and interchangeably share and use information. Members of The Center for Medical Interoperability mostly are hospitals and health systems, a membership structure designed to drive change by leveraging members’ extensive market presence and expertise to support standards-based, plug-and-play solutions at a scale that will impact the nation’s healthcare ecosystem.

A key element of the Center’s strategy will be a research and development lab where solutions are collaboratively developed, tested and certified. The Center will work with its members to understand business, clinical and technical requirements, and with the healthcare marketplace in a vendor-neutral manner to develop solutions and share performance results to help drive adoption.

“A central lab will offer our members critical information about the plug-and-play interoperability of vendor products, and then those members can use their market presence to drive the healthcare ecosystem toward adopting products that allow seamless exchange of information,” Johns said.

The non-profit Center was launched with $10 million in funding from the Gary and Mary West Foundation, in conjunction with personnel and technology from the Gary and Mary West Health Institute.

The Center’s Board of Directors consists of executives from some of the largest U.S. health systems and represent different segments of the hospital world – for-profit, not-for-profit, academic and public. Board members include:

• Michael M. E. Johns, M.D.
  Founding Chairman, Center for Medical Interoperability

• Jeffrey Balser, M.D., Ph.D.
  Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Dean, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
   
• William Carpenter III
  Chairman and CEO, LifePoint Hospitals

• Dean Harrison
  President and CEO, Northwestern Memorial HealthCare
   
• R. Milton Johnson
  Chairman and CEO, Hospital Corporation of America
   
• Stephen Jones
  President and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and Robert Wood Johnson Health System
   
• Thomas Priselac
  President and CEO, Cedars-Sinai Health System
   
• Jon Pryor, M.D.
  CEO, Hennepin Healthcare System
   
• Paul Rothman, M.D.
  CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine and Dean, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
   
• Michael Schatzlein, M.D.
  Market Leader, Indiana and Tennessee Ministries, Ascension Health
   
• Joseph Smith, M.D., Ph.D.
  Chief Medical and Science Officer, West Health Institute

• Wayne Smith
  Chairman, President and CEO, Community Health Systems
   
• Nicholas Valeriani
  Chief Executive, West Health
   
• Chris Van Gorder
  President and CEO, Scripps Health