“The only constant is change” has never been more true than it is today. Technology has advanced rapidly in recent years; adoption of technology has increased dramatically; and meanwhile, regulatory bodies struggle to catch up.

A little over 35 years ago, on Feb. 8, 1984, astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart left the space shuttle on mission STS-41-B for the first-ever untethered space walk, becoming what the New York Times called “the first human satellites.”

Today, in clinical settings all over the world, healthcare clinicians benefit from the same sense of untethering from wired technology, thanks to the evolution of the cloud.

I flew out of Logan Airport in Boston at 5:30 a.m. last Monday, and was eager to head to sunny Orlando as a first time HIMSS attendee. The next three days were a whirlwind of innovation, shared ideas, and excitement about the future of health IT.

January is traditionally an opportunity to set goals for the year ahead, and while there’s no shortage of advice on how to maintain New Year’s resolutions, 80 percent of people break their resolutions after an average of six weeks.

If you’re like me and starting to feel the waning motivation that February brings, there is hope — we can look to the healthcare industry to be re-inspired by the discipline required to stay successful.

Cancer is a relentless and complex disease. Twenty-five years ago, if you were diagnosed with cancer, your chances of being alive five years later were only about 48-49 percent. But today, thanks to medical and technology advancements, survival rates have improved to 66-67 percent.

MEDITECH recently introduced MEDITECH Greenfield, our new application development environment supported by RESTful APIs, including FHIR. Greenfield is an open space for customers and third-party developers to create and share applications that drive innovation, increase interoperability, and grow the value of their Expanse EHR.

Currently, one of the most important goals in the health IT industry is making data truly interoperable.

In pursuit of that goal, healthcare organizations are seeking ways to match patient data and locate records in a fragmented digital environment where technology and processes simply aren’t set up to allow efficient data exchange and access. On top of that, regulatory requirements are putting additional pressure on healthcare organizations to meet benchmarks and reporting mandates.

Interoperability has always been a cornerstone of MEDITECH’s vision for healthcare IT. And through our partnership with CommonWell Health Alliance®, we’re pleased to be taking another large step for connectivity, by successfully deploying CommonWell interoperability services at Alliance Community Hospital (ACH) in Alliance, Ohio.

The challenges faced by rural healthcare organizations today — Critical Access Hospitals in particular — are truly daunting. Many never fully recovered from the economic downturn and most continue to experience provider shortages while caring for an increasingly older and more chronically ill population.

Healthcare IT should always be about the patient. To that end, interoperability is the cornerstone of this patient-first perspective — as an important support mechanism for the timely and effective exchange of information critical for delivering patient care.