Interoperability used to feel like background infrastructure. It is increasingly becoming the strategy that everything else depends on.
Healthcare didn’t become complex because we lacked software. It became complex because none of our systems were designed to think together.
The centre of gravity in healthcare is shifting to the data spine.
For a long time the EMR and PMS sat at the centre. They held the data. They shaped the workflow. They defined the experience.
That is no longer the full story.
The EMR and PMS are still essential. They anchor daily clinical work. But the real leverage now sits in the platforms that connect everything around it.
- Health information exchanges;
- Shared data layers;
- Interoperability spines that move information safely, consistently and with context.
These are the systems that let care follow the patient.
They make insight available at the point of need, not just inside the system that captured it. They turn data into something that can be trusted, reused and acted on.
And that changes what modernisation actually means.
It is not just about rebuilding legacy products. It is about deciding what the product should own, and what the data platform should enable for the whole ecosystem. It’s about designing workflows that span settings, instead of assuming everything happens inside one application.
Replatforming still matters. It stabilises foundations and removes technical debt.
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But the real transformation happens when products work with a shared health data spine, rather than each trying to be the centre.
Teams that get this respect the role of the EMR and PMS, while building for a future where data moves with the patient and value is created across the network.
Modernisation is no longer just about features. It is about building a connected health system that actually works together.
Interoperability used to feel like background infrastructure. It is increasingly becoming the strategy that everything else depends on.
How ready do you think our industry really is for that shift?
Danielle Bancroft is the boss of product strategy (interoperability and integrations) at Telstra Health. She is the founder and managing director of Off Label Consulting.
This article was first published on Ms Bancroft’s LinkedIn feed. Read the original article here.