Interoperability Paper Essay

Health information systems having the power to work together within and across organizational boundaries in order to advance the effective delivery of health care of individuals and communities is called Interoperability. Interoperability enhances the significance for information technology to make the networks and integrations work. It also affects care delivery, continuity of care, and the ability to share information with patients for patient engagement. The term is most widely used in product enhancement and marketing. In human services different providers employ interoperability to communicate with other systems and services for better results. (Margaret Rouse, 2006) ACF Interoperability Initiative The Administration for Children & Families or the ACF is known as an important Department of Health & Human Services America. ACF supports the economic and social well-being of children, families, communities, and individuals through offering many state of the art programs. ACF’s human services provide a vast range of groups consisting of individuals and families earning low income, Native Americans, refugees, and many others. (ACF, 2013) ACF has a mission to fulfill, and is also struggling to do so. They want to be able to provide grants to non-profit groups, state and local governments, faith and community-based organizations, Native American communities, and American Indian tribes. ACF also provides technical assistance, supervision, and administration to fund beneficiaries that, in turn, are responsible for direct delivery of services. (ACF, 2013) There are many barriers and issues in providing the grants to the end recipients for which the initiative is taken to implement the interoperability. â€Å"Interoperability† is acknowledged as a national effort of technological and programmatic coordination to mitigate and even diminish those barriers. Today, the emergence of â€Å"interoperable technology† provides the opportunity  to unite systems cross wide traditional boundaries in exciting and rewarding ways. This integration through interoperability corresponds to the need for expansion of new service models and techniques to make best use of constructive outcomes for children, families and communities (ACF, 2013). Models of Interoperability There are different ways and methods to implement interoperability. Almost every organization creates its own interoperability models and methods. The three models of interoperability are information interoperability, business interoperability, and technical interoperability. Information interoperability allows the separate systems to understand the format, meaning and also the quality of the information being exchange, and it includes knowledge management, business intelligence, information management, and trusted identity. Business interoperability is an interface that enables business interoperability between organizational systems. It includes delivery network, e-Democracy, e-Business, enterprise resource management, and relationship and case management. Lastly technical interoperability means the ability of two or more information and communication technology applications, to accept data from each other and perform a given task in an appropriate and satisfactory manner without the need for extra operator intervention and this includes IT infrastructure ( Togaf, 2013) Advantages and Disadvantages There are many benefits of interoperability. Interoperability is significant in linking health and human services. It improves the client’s experience by caring for the whole person with enhanced and advanced care coordination, enhanced timely contact to getting critical information for decision making, prevent illness, reduce exacerbating conditions, decrease hospital reentries and help build individuals self-sufficiency. Interoperability helps in providing the ACF timely and accurate information to provide a more compatible enrollment process. The system will also enhance the access of information. The system helps access a wide range of data from every human service organization to link the clients to. The transparency through interoperability across programs will also enhance the ability of systems to reduce fraud, waste and abuse. I don’t think there are any disadvantages. Back-up It is very important for you to protect the data because it is the heart of the organization. And to protect your organization’s data, you need to implement a data backup and recovery plan. Backing up files can protect against accidental loss of user data, database corruption, hardware failures, and even natural disasters (Microsoft, 2013).The way the files are backed up vary according to the data that is required to be back up and also the convenience regarding the recovery process. Normal/full backups: In this method every file that is selected is backed up, apart from the setting of the attributes of archive. If there is modification required in a file, this attribute is set, which shows the requirement for file back up. Listed below is the backup plan concerning the interoperability. * Copy backups: Every file selected for back up is backed up fully, without the consideration of the setting of the archive attribute. Contrasting a normal backup, the modification does not occur to the archive attribute on files. It gives rise to opportunity to create other backups in future. * Differential backups: Invented in order save the changes to files since the last backup of the system. Only files with the archive attribute are backed up. The files with the archive attribute aren’t modified. This lets you perform other kinds of backups on the files at a later date. * Incremental backups: This is designed to generate backups of files that have changed since the most recent normal or incremental backup. The existence of the archive attribute indicates that the file has been modified. Only files with this attribute are backed up. The archive attribute is cleared when a file is backed up. If the file is modified later this attribute is set. When the attribute is set it indicates that the file needs to be backed up. * Daily backups: Designed to create backup files on the date the file was created. The file will also be backed up if the file has been changed on the same day as the backup. Daily backups do not change the archive attributes of files (Microsoft, 2013). The ACF is hoping to accomplish full backups on a weekly basis and complement this with daily, differential, or incremental backups. The organization also wants to generate an extended backup set for quarterly and monthly backups. This can include files that aren’t being backed up on a regular basis. References ACF, (2013), â€Å"ACF Interoperability Initiative†. Retrieved from: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/initiatives-priorities/interoperability Margaret Rouse, (2006), â€Å"Interoperability†. Retrieved from: http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/interoperability Microsoft, (2013), â€Å"Data Back Up and Recovery†. Retrieved from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727010.aspx Togaf, (2013), â€Å"Interoperability Requirements†. Retrieved from: http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/arch/chap29.html