The health care industry has spent years working toward interoperability. What we’ve accomplished to date represents significant progress, with connected devices, electronic health records, advanced monitoring systems, applications, and data repositories that once operated in isolation now increasingly working together.
For clinicians, however, those connections only matter at the bedside if they change what a care provider can see, understand, or act on. Simply moving data from one system to another does not necessarily make it easier to find, interpret, or determine what requires attention. So, while the industry has made substantial advances in interoperability, a gap still remains between connectivity and true integration, and it carries a hidden cost.
The financial burden is not always visible on a balance sheet, but clinicians experience it every day. It shows up in minutes lost, duplicate work, missed context, alert burden, and technology that is technically available but practically underused. As clinicians, we should expect more.
Pivot from asking “Can these systems connect?” to “What are these systems achieving?”
Early interoperability efforts focused on whether two systems could exchange information, and while we’ve largely proven they can, the better measure of success is what happens once the data arrives.
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Consider a patient whose physiologic data can be transferred from a bedside monitor into another clinical system. If the clinician still has to open multiple screens, search for the relevant trend, compare timestamps, identify which values matter, and mentally reconstruct what changed, the interface may have moved data without doing much to reduce the work required to use it.
The same is true when a hospital adds an application to solve a specific problem. A new tool may provide valuable capability, but if clinicians must learn an entirely new workflow, remember another login, or navigate even more screens and dashboards, the organization is likely adding more complexity to an already crowded environment.
Successful transmission alone is not enough. Integration should be measured by whether the technology turns information into usable clinical context.
Good integration should remove work, not shift it elsewhere
Clinicians have become accustomed to adapting to imperfect systems. They create workarounds, memorize where information lives, and ask colleagues to confirm whether another system is showing the same data. In effect, they become the human integration layer.
The danger is that this ability to adapt can make poor integration appear functional, even when the underlying workflow remains fragmented and inefficient. Nurses and physicians may learn to compensate for that fragmentation, but every added search, manual reconciliation, and unnecessary transition consumes attention that could be directed toward the patient.
That is why one of the most useful ways to evaluate integration is to ask what it eliminates. Does it remove a step? Does it reduce duplicate documentation? Does it surface relevant information within the clinician’s existing workflow? Does it provide context rather than another stream of raw data? Does it help the care team recognize an important patient change sooner? If the answer is no, it is worth asking whether the organization has integrated its technology or simply connected more technology to the clinician.
Before adding more technology, assess what you already have
Hospitals understandably look to new technology when trying to improve efficiency, address staffing pressures, or modernize care. Sometimes a new investment is exactly what is needed.
But before adding another platform, leaders should ask whether the organization is getting full value from the data and capabilities already in place. Clinical environments generate enormous amounts of information. The challenge is typically not about volume, but usability: where information resides, how it is connected and interpreted, when it reaches the right people, and whether it arrives with enough context to immediately act on.
That creates an important opportunity. Instead of beginning every improvement effort with “What should we buy?” health systems can also ask, “What are we already generating that clinicians cannot easily use?” That question can uncover gaps that are less about acquiring technology and more about connecting, configuring, or presenting existing information more effectively.
It also brings clinicians into the conversation earlier. Frontline users often know exactly where information gets stuck because they encounter those friction points every shift.
Design for the next need, not only the current one
Clinical needs continue to evolve as care models shift, patient volumes change, and hospitals introduce different devices and new digital tools. An integration strategy built only around today’s requirements can quickly become tomorrow’s constraint. For clinicians, that may mean more workarounds. For IT teams, it can mean a growing web of connections that is harder to maintain.
A more sustainable approach is to think beyond isolated interfaces and build for flexibility. Can new sources of clinical data be added without rebuilding workflows? Can information be presented consistently as systems evolve? Flexibility should be treated as both a technical and clinical priority, because infrastructure decisions ultimately shape how clinicians work.
Is technology making the clinical environment quieter or louder?
Every new system competes for clinician attention, making complexity an important clinical consideration. A well-integrated environment should make it easier to identify what matters by reducing unnecessary navigation, duplication, and the need to reconcile information across systems. Ideally, technology supports the workflow without constantly demanding attention.
A useful test is simple: Does this make the clinician’s job clearer? Can clinicians find the information they need, understand what has changed, and act without reconstructing the patient’s story across multiple systems? That is where interoperability begins to deliver real value, for patient care and the clinicians providing it.
Connectivity is just the start
Health care does not need more data; it needs to get more value from the data already surrounding the patient. That requires moving beyond a definition of integration based on whether systems can communicate. The better standard is whether that communication improves the clinician’s ability to understand the patient and make a timely, informed decision.
If data arrives but remains difficult to find, interpret, or respond to, the connection has fallen short of its clinical purpose. Systems “talking to each other” should not be the finish line. The better test is whether the right information reaches clinicians in a format they can understand, within the workflow where they need it, and without adding another layer between them and the patient.
Marilyn Flood is a health care executive.
