Interoperability that really works for busy physicians

Making Interoperability Work in the Exam Room

Interoperability has made meaningful progress over the preceding years — yet information still tends to show up without structure and lacks clarity in the exam room — which increasingly feels like a burden to clinicians, rather than progress. At ViVE, I talked about that reality with Chris Voigt, CTO of Privia Health — a long-standing athenahealth partner serving thousands of physicians across the country. We agreed that data exchange has advanced in important ways. The harder question now is what clinicians experience once that data becomes part of the chart.

Information arrives in volume — important details are buried in duplicates, long documents and conflicting lists. In a busy clinic day, no one has time to review numerous documents or reconcile information line by line.

While a 68-page Continuity of Care Document (CCD) meets the technical definition of interoperability, it does not meet the clinical definition — this is not progress for clinicians but adds to administrative burden.

Clinicians need curated information presented clearly in the workflow — so they can focus on the patient in front of them instead of the screen. A reconciled allergy list supports a clinical decision, and the difference becomes visible in the exam room. The structure of the data determines whether it supports care or competes with it.

AI can be helpful when it is introduced thoughtfully and responsibly within clinical workflows. When generative AI first entered the clinical conversation, skepticism was appropriate, as physicians questioned whether it would relieve work or add to it.

Ambient documentation shifted that dynamic. The first impact was not dramatic time savings. It was presence. Clinicians described looking at their patients again instead of their keyboards and said visits felt closer to the medicine they trained to practice. Over time, measurable reductions in after-hours documentation followed, and trust grew because the improvement was visible in daily work.

That pattern is instructive. AI adoption grows when technology improves the human element of care rather than distracts from it. Once that foundation is established, AI can take on more complex synthesis of data across the chart to support clearer, safer clinical decisions.

This is where interoperability moves from standards into daily workflow. At ViVE, Chris described how Privia Health physicians partner closely with our teams through early testing and feedback loops because the details of usability matter. As external data continues to flow into the EHR, systems need to reconcile it, remove duplication, and highlight what changed. If a patient saw a specialist last week, the primary care physician should be able to quickly understand what was updated, which medications were added, and what requires follow-up. A concise summary grounded in structured data allows the clinician to decide what matters in that visit — so they can stay focused on their patient instead of working through pages of documentation.

Interoperability remains essential, and that work will continue. As data exchange expands, the responsibility shifts toward transforming data and information into knowledge useful at the point of care.

Technology should facilitate care delivery and improve outcomes — while retaining the human element of care. That remains the standard I return to.