Karen DeSalvo, national coordinator for Health Information Technology, believes there are assets and methods outside of the medicine space that healthcare professionals could use to develop health IT systems, FedScoop reported Wednesday.

Billy Mitchell writes the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT within the Health and Human Services Department plans to collaborate with the U.S. Postal Service to build health record interoperability tools.

“They have hundreds of thousands of employees for whom they are making a personal health record and a portal so they can access their health information,” DeSalvo told a discussion panel.

“They also have a potential platform to create a way that every American has an identifier, like an address they registered online,” she said during the ACT-IAC health care panel.

– See more at: http://www.executivegov.com/2014/09/karen-desalvo-pushes-for-interoperability-with-other-arenas-to-build-health-it-systems/#sthash.JmAZYjo0.dpuf

Here is some info I found on the internet about Interoperability:

What is Interoperability?

Interoperability describes the extent to which systems and devices can exchange data, and interpret that shared data. For two systems to be interoperable, they must be able to exchange data and subsequently present that data such that it can be understood by a user.

In healthcare, interoperability is the ability of different information technology systems and software applications to communicate, exchange data, and use the information that has been exchanged.¹ Data exchange schema and standards should permit data to be shared across clinicians, lab, hospital, pharmacy, and patient regardless of the application or application vendor.²

Interoperability means the ability of health information systems to work together within and across organizational boundaries in order to advance the effective delivery of healthcare for individuals and communities.³ There are three levels of health information technology interoperability: ⁴ 1) Foundational; 2) Structural; and 3) Semantic.

By combining a robust electronic health record solution with first-class interoperability tools, we have developed the necessary tool to enable clients to easily communicate and share important clinical information via a secure and integrated messaging service with any provider,