Book Review: Principles of Health Interoperability HL7 and SNOMED

Revolutions, in which he defined a paradigm as a belief which is generally accepted in a certain specific generation [1]. He stated that one paradigm gradually transitions to the next paradigm through revolutionary activities when a new scientific discovery is found. He called this transition a ‘paradigm shift’ [1]. Across the world, healthcare providers used to believe that paper-based medical records were necessary to provide healthcare. Now we are beginning to see a ‘paradigm shift’ in the field of health informatics as many healthcare organizations computerize patients’ medical records. According to a report recently published by the European Union (EU), many hospitals and clinics are using electronic patient records or Electronic Health Records systems. Eighty-four percent of hospitals and 93% of clinics in the EU have adopted some kind of electronic patient record systems [2,3]. In the United States, many healthcare professionals have implemented Electronic Health Record systems [4,5]. The federal government even finances medical doctors when they use standardized Electronic Medical Records systems [6]. This paradigm shift from paper-based to digital electronic records brings many potential benefits. Among them, there are two critical advantages. One is the prevention of duplicative tests by sharing patient information among medical facilities, which would inevitably result in cost-saving. The other is improved quality of care. Providers can share patients’ healthcare information with each other; therefore, they are able to make better healthcare decisions. These benefits only exist where there are electronic patient or health records systems with the ability to exchange patients’ information, known as interoperability. However, Principles of Health Interoperability HL7 and SNOMED