3M technology removes barriers to interoperability for all U.S. healthcare providers

3M Health Information Systems announced today it will open access to the 3M Healthcare Data Dictionary under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The 3M Healthcare Data Dictionary will provide the core technology to enable semantic interoperability for the joint DoD/VA integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR), making it possible to share medical knowledge and secure patient data between care providers at U.S. military treatment facilities located around the world and VA Medical Centers. Access to actionable clinical information whenever and wherever care is delivered will enable safer, better coordinated, and higher quality care for the country’s 32 million veterans, active service members, and their families.

Healthcare industry stakeholders could also benefit, as the agreement makes the 3M Healthcare Data Dictionary (3M HDD) software and terminology content openly available to hospitals, health systems, physician practices, payers, vendors, and public health agencies worldwide.

The 3M HDD has been built by incorporating and linking terms from multiple clinical information systems and standard terminologies, such as LOINC, RxNorm, and SNOMED CT. It maps disparate medical terms to give data context and meaning, and is used to standardize data to make it interoperable and computable. Designed to be flexible and extensible, the 3M HDD’s concept-based controlled vocabulary and knowledge base have been continuously expanded and maintained for nearly two decades.

Open access to the 3M HDD for U.S. healthcare providers will help accelerate implementation of electronic health records and help healthcare organizations achieve meaningful use standards established by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The 3M HDD enables clinical queries and analytics, and organizes healthcare data to support requirements under meaningful use. It provides the foundation for enhancing healthcare analytics, decision support, and business intelligence.

“We look forward to helping the DoD and VA advance their groundbreaking initiative to deliver a fully integrated electronic health record that spans all healthcare facilities providing care to military personnel, veterans and their families,” said Jon T. Lindekugel, President, 3M Health Information Systems. “With open access to the 3M HDD, VA and DoD healthcare providers will have an unprecedented opportunity to innovate, collaborate, and deliver value to their organizations and to their patients.”

“This agreement will accelerate EHR adoption across the industry and help achieve a common language for health care,” said Hon Pak, M.D., Chief Executive Officer, Diversinet and Former Chief Information Officer, U.S. Army Medical Department. “We’ll be able to access meaningful data, analyze it, and deliver it back to clinicians to help them make better decisions for their patients. The HDD makes this possible in ways no other product or service can.”

All major healthcare standard terminologies are mapped into the 3M HDD, including SNOMED CT^®, LOINC^®, RxNorm^®, ICD-9, and ICD-10. Pending approval from international standards development organizations, these standards will be included with the open access software for organizations and users who have appropriate authorization. Local terminologies are also mapped into the 3M HDD, allowing healthcare facilities to continue to collect data with existing information systems and then crosswalk this data to industry standards for semantic interoperability.

“Healthcare organizations have a growing need to maintain an ever-increasing amount of structured data to comply with meaningful use requirements,” said Lee Min Lau, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Informaticist for 3M Health Information Systems. “To effectively manage, access, and use this data, organizations must achieve accurate and consistent terminology use. It’s essential to meeting meaningful use measures today and supporting the data-driven processes that organizations will need tomorrow.” To learn more, download the 3M white paper, “Meaningful Use and the 3M Healthcare Data Dictionary.”

3M Health Information Systems pioneered the use of mapping in standardizing and normalizing data. 3M has mapped and maintained content for nearly 500 hospitals and clinics, including large integrated delivery networks and all DoD Military Treatment Facilities worldwide, and is active in standards and informatics organizations, such as Health Level 7 (HL7) and the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). 3M also has authored a comprehensive Medical Information Model for healthcare domains including: Pharmacy, Laboratory, Microbiology, Radiology, Dentistry, Problem List (Diagnosis and Procedure), and Admissions Discharge and Transfer (ADT).

Registration and complete information for accessing the 3M HDD is available at the new HDD Access web site, www.HDDaccess.com.

3M Health Information Systems products and services leverage the terminology foundation of the 3M HDD, including the 3M 360 Encompass System, the new 3M solution that automates coding, documentation improvement, and performance monitoring by integrating the 3M HDD with 3M’s clinical coding expertise and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology.

About 3M Health Information Systems
3M Health Information Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of 3M Company and part of the 3M Health Care family. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, the company employs more than 800 people in six offices nationwide and in addition to the United States operations, conducts business in Europe, Canada, Australia, Asia and South America. 3M Health Information Systems offers more than 30 years of healthcare industry experience, classification of clinical data and expertise in coding, and is an international leader in clinical data classification, vocabulary and data standardization, and clinical information management. Our products and services range from medical record coding and classification systems to comprehensive computer-based patient records. They are used in more than 5000 hospitals worldwide to improve quality and financial performance. More information is available at www.3MHIS.com or by calling 800-367-2447.

LOINC is a registered trademark of Regenstrief Institute, Inc. RxNorm is a registered trademark of the National Library of Medicine. SNOMED and SNOMED CT are registered trademarks of the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation.

3M and 360 Encompass are trademarks of 3M Company.

3MMary Kokkinen, 651-733-88063M Public Relations and Corporate Communications