Strength in Data Exchange Standards: An Executive Guide to Health Information Exchange and Interoperability

A patient visits their primary care provider, sees a specialist two weeks later, and stops by an urgent care clinic before the month ends. Each encounter generates valuable clinical information, yet much of that information often remains trapped in separate healthcare systems, causing providers to spend time searching for records, reconciling data from multiple sources, and piecing together an incomplete story instead of focusing on patient care.

The impact extends beyond inconvenience. According to a JAMIA study, office-based physicians spend more than five hours in the EHR for every eight hours of scheduled patient time, highlighting how administrative and information-management tasks continue to compete with patient care.

This challenge is why Health Information Exchange (HIE) and interoperability have become strategic priorities for healthcare organizations. Modern healthcare depends on cross-platform sharing, real-time data sharing, and seamless access to patient information. When data can move securely and efficiently between systems, providers gain access to the comprehensive patient information needed to support better decisions, stronger provider collaboration, and more coordinated care.

At Greenway Health, we believe connected data is the foundation of patient-centered care. Through standards-based interoperability and innovations like Novare™ by Greenway Health, practices can move beyond simply exchanging information and begin creating more efficient workflows that reduce administrative burden and return valuable time to patient care.

In the sections that follow, we’ll explore five foundational concepts shaping modern healthcare connectivity:

• Health Information Exchange
• Interoperability
• Data Standards
• Real-Time Data Sharing
• Efficient Care Coordination

Together, these capabilities create the infrastructure needed for connected healthcare systems, stronger provider collaboration, improved patient-centered care, and long-term operational success.

Why Data Exchange Standards Matter Now

Healthcare has become increasingly connected, but patient information often remains fragmented. A single patient may receive care from a primary care provider, specialist, laboratory, pharmacy, and urgent care clinic in a matter of weeks. Without effective Health Information Exchange, the result is delayed information, duplicate testing, disconnected workflows, and administrative burden.

Today, healthcare organizations are expected to provide seamless access to comprehensive patient information across care settings. Patients expect coordinated experiences, and providers expect information to be available where and when they need it.

Those expectations continue to grow as healthcare becomes increasingly digital. As of 2024, 91% of office-based physicians had adopted a certified EHR, creating a strong technology foundation while raising expectations that information should move seamlessly across systems and care settings.

For healthcare executives, the challenge is no longer simply digitizing information. It is ensuring that information can be securely exchanged, interpreted, and acted upon across the healthcare ecosystem.

Disconnected healthcare systems can contribute to rising operational costs, slower workflows, provider frustration, and clinical risk. By contrast, organizations that embrace interoperability, data standards, real-time data sharing, and efficient care coordination create stronger foundations for patient-centered care while supporting more sustainable growth.

Understanding the relationship between these concepts is essential because each contributes to improved financial performance, provider collaboration, cross-platform sharing, and efficient workflows throughout the organization. 

Health Information Exchange

Health Information Exchange (HIE) is the secure electronic movement of patient health information between healthcare organizations, systems, and care settings according to shared standards.

Think of HIE as a library card that works across multiple library branches. Instead of information being locked within a single location, authorized providers can securely access relevant patient records wherever care is delivered. Just as a librarian can locate and retrieve a book from another branch when needed, HIE helps providers find and access patient information across participating healthcare organizations.

HIE enables cross-platform sharing by connecting EHRs, healthcare systems, and partner networks through secure technologies that locate, exchange, normalize, and manage health information. These networks support audit logging, data governance, patient consent management, and regulatory compliance while helping organizations achieve seamless access to critical information.

For healthcare leaders, Health Information Exchange supports faster clinical decisions, fewer duplicate tests, reduced administrative burden, and stronger provider collaboration. Through participation in interoperability frameworks such as CommonWell, Greenway helps practices access and exchange patient information within existing workflows instead of relying on disconnected portals and manual processes.

Interoperability

Interoperability is the ability of different systems and applications to connect, exchange information, and meaningfully use that information.

Many organizations can exchange data. Far fewer achieve true interoperability.

In fact, a 2024 KLAS clinician interoperability survey found that only 44% of clinicians believe their EHR provides the level of integration they need with outside organizations, demonstrating that connectivity alone does not guarantee a seamless experience.

Consider two people who speak different native languages but share a common second language. Communication succeeds only when both understand the meaning behind the words. Healthcare interoperability works the same way. Systems must not only exchange information but also interpret it consistently.

Interoperability works across four interconnected layers:

• Technical Connection: Secure connections that allow systems to exchange information.
• Syntactic Alignment: Standardized formats such as HL7, FHIR, and C-CDA that structure data consistently.
• Semantic Alignment: Shared vocabularies and value sets that ensure information has the same meaning across systems.
• Organizational Agreements: Governance, trust frameworks, and permissions that define how information is shared and protected.

When these layers work together, healthcare organizations create stronger provider collaboration, support patient-centered care, and enable reliable cross-platform sharing of clinical information.

Greenway Health embraces standards-driven interoperability that helps organizations connect laboratories, pharmacies, HIE networks, specialists, registries, and community partners while supporting more efficient workflows.

Data Standards

Data standards are agreed-upon formats, vocabularies, and protocols that define how health information is structured, labeled, and transmitted between systems.

Data standards help create the common language that makes interoperability possible. Without them, healthcare organizations would spend significant time manually reconciling information between systems.

Standards ensure that medications, diagnoses, allergies, procedures, lab results, and clinical documentation can be shared accurately and consistently. The result is more reliable cross-platform sharing, fewer translation errors, and improved access to comprehensive patient information.

Key examples include:

• HL7
• FHIR
• C-CDA
• Standardized clinical terminology sets
• Codified laboratory reporting frameworks

By aligning with industry-recognized data standards, organizations can lower integration costs, improve provider collaboration, support efficient workflows, and reduce vendor lock-in. Greenway’s interoperability strategy aligns with HL7, FHIR, C-CDA, and ONC-certified interoperability requirements to support scalable data exchange and future innovation.

Real-Time Data Sharing

Real-time data sharing is the exchange of patient information at or near the moment it is created, updated, or received.

Clinical decisions are only as effective as the information available at the time they are made. Outdated records, delayed notifications, and incomplete updates can introduce unnecessary risk into patient care.

Even when data is available electronically, accessibility remains a challenge. The same 2024 KLAS survey found that 47% of respondents could not quickly locate important patient information from outside organizations, underscoring the importance of making timely, relevant data available within existing workflows

Think of the difference between a paper map and a navigation application using live traffic information. One reflects the past. The other adapts to what’s happening right now.

Real-time data sharing helps healthcare organizations act on current information. Event-driven workflows enable updates to move automatically between systems whenever information changes. A completed lab result, new medication order, or care transition can trigger notifications, updates, and clinical workflows without requiring manual intervention.

For healthcare leaders, real-time data sharing contributes directly to improved patient safety, stronger provider collaboration, more efficient workflows, and more efficient care coordination across care teams. Greenway supports real-time clinical workflows through capabilities such as e-prescribing, laboratory connectivity, clinical notifications, and standards-based interoperability integrated directly within clinician workflows.

Efficient Care Coordination

Efficient care coordination is the organized management of patient care activities and information across multiple providers to deliver safe, timely, and non-duplicative care.

Efficient care coordination is the outcome that organizations achieve when Health Information Exchange, interoperability, data standards, and real-time data sharing work together effectively.

These capabilities create a more complete patient picture that helps providers understand medical history, medications, allergies, ongoing treatment plans, and recent clinical events.

The need for that unified view is growing. In 2024, more than 59% of individuals reported having multiple online medical records or patient portals, highlighting how healthcare information continues to be distributed across different sources and care settings.

Access to comprehensive patient information enables better decisions while reducing care delays and unnecessary duplication.

For providers and care teams, efficient care coordination improves provider collaboration and facilitates patient-centered care. For healthcare executives, it helps create more efficient workflows, improve quality performance, increase staff capacity, and strengthen financial outcomes.

Greenway supports efficient care coordination through connected EHR workflows, patient engagement tools, population health capabilities, analytics, and revenue cycle solutions that help organizations transform connected data into measurable outcomes.

How Greenway Health Connects the Pieces

The five concepts covered above are most effective when delivered through a single platform, not a patchwork of disconnected solutions. Novare combines standards-based interoperability, Health Information Exchange, and workflow intelligence into one connected foundation, helping practices exchange information more efficiently and act on it more effectively.

• Integrated EHR Foundation: Cloud solutions centralize clinical, financial, and administrative data, so exchange is native, not bolted on.
• National Network Participation: Connectivity to frameworks such as CommonWell extends each practice’s reach across the healthcare ecosystem.
• Standards-Based, Certified Technology: Support for ONC-certified technology, FHIR, HL7, and C-CDA enables secure, scalable interoperability.
• Value-Based Enablement: Analytics, quality reporting, and care management tools help transform connected data into meaningful action.

The result is a platform that helps healthcare organizations improve efficient care coordination, streamline workflows, and support better clinical and business outcomes.

How Connected Data Exchange Differs from Traditional Record-Keeping

 

The strategic value lies not simply in connecting technology, but in creating a healthcare environment where information flows securely and efficiently to support both clinical and operational goals.

What This Means for Healthcare Executives

When evaluating interoperability initiatives, healthcare leaders should focus on the business outcomes each capability enables:

• Standards-based interoperability supports long-term technology investments.
• Health Information Exchange helps reduce duplicate testing and administrative overhead.
• Real-time data sharing enables faster, more informed clinical decisions.
• Efficient care coordination increases staff capacity and operational efficiency.
• Cross-platform sharing supports participation in value-based care initiatives.
• Strong governance helps maintain regulatory compliance and data integrity.

Together, these capabilities create an environment that is more connected, efficient, and resilient.

How to Evaluate Your Data Exchange Strategy

1. Assess Current Connectivity
   • Identify where patient information currently flows and where data silos still exist.
2. Prioritize Standards Adoption
   • Evaluate whether current systems support industry-recognized standards such as FHIR, HL7, and C-CDA.
3. Demand Real-Time Capability
   • Determine whether critical patient information can be exchanged and acted upon without unnecessary delays.
4. Invest in Governance
   • Establish data ownership, access controls, security requirements, and accountability processes.
5. Measure Against Value-Based Goals
   • Evaluate how interoperability investments support quality outcomes, operational efficiency, and patient engagement initiatives.

Organizations that regularly assess these areas are better positioned to maximize the value of their technology investments.

 

Building the Foundation for Connected Care

Healthcare organizations cannot achieve connected care through isolated systems, custom integrations, or manual workarounds alone. Long-term success requires standards-based interoperability that enables information to move securely, accurately, and efficiently across the healthcare ecosystem.

As an AI-by-design platform built for modern healthcare, Novare by Greenway Health combines standards-driven interoperability with workflow automation to help practices reduce administrative burden, improve access to information, and support more coordinated care.

The ultimate goal is simple: give providers access to the information they need when they need it, so they can spend less time managing data and more time caring for patients.

Ready to evaluate your interoperability strategy?

Explore how Greenway Health and Novare can help your organization build a stronger foundation for connected care.

Glossary

• Cross-Platform Sharing: The secure exchange of patient information across different healthcare systems, EHRs, applications, and organizations, ensuring authorized users can access relevant health data regardless of where it was originally created.
• Data Standards: Agreed-upon formats, vocabularies, and protocols that define how health information is structured, labeled, transmitted, and interpreted between healthcare systems. Common data standards include HL7, FHIR, and C-CDA.
• Efficient Care Coordination: The organized management and sharing of patient information, services, and care activities across multiple providers and settings to deliver timely, safe, and non-duplicative care.
• FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources): A modern interoperability standard that uses web-based APIs to enable secure, standardized, and scalable exchange of healthcare information between EHRs, applications, and healthcare organizations.
• Health Information Exchange (HIE): The secure electronic movement of patient health information among healthcare organizations, providers, and systems according to shared data standards, enabling more connected and coordinated care.
• Interoperability: The ability of different healthcare systems, applications, and technologies to connect, exchange information, and use that information in a meaningful and coordinated way to support patient care and operational efficiency.
• Patient-Centered Care: A healthcare approach that organizes care delivery, information, and decision-making around the needs of the patient, supported by complete, accessible, and connected health information.
• Provider Collaboration: Coordinated participation of physicians, specialists, nurses, and other care team members in a patient’s care, enabled by shared access to accurate and up-to-date health information.
• Real-Time Data Sharing: The exchange of patient information at or near the moment it is created, updated, or received, enabling providers to make decisions using the most current information available.
• Semantic Interoperability: The highest level of interoperability, allowing healthcare systems to exchange information and interpret its meaning consistently through shared vocabularies, terminologies, and value sets.