Troubled Standards: Creating an Integrated Lab

The effort to create an “integrated lab” just means that we want to get everything in the lab working together. Additionally, there is a desire to make it easier to make things all work together than has previously been possible. With the various brands of software and equipment, sometimes on different platforms, often with different data sources, the challenge remains—well—a challenge.

One notable effort has been HL7 (Health Level 7 International, http://www.hl7.org/ ), which is an effort to standardize health information technology.3 HL7 has created standards for items such as electronic health records.

So, if HL7 can do it, we should wonder why we can’t do it with everything else. I don’t know the answer to that, but here are a few facts I’d like to mention...