What is Inoperability

Until some decades ago, health care services were primarily supplied inside hospitals. The patient had to move from his or her home to the hospital, where various diagnostic and therapeutic treatments were provided. Moreover, inside the same hospital, the various tools and processes were insulated and autonomous. Patients and doctors had to move from one tool to another, often placed in different areas, to acquire the different resources. Information provided by these tools was generally collected via paper records. These records were then physically moved (generally in a very inefficient way) from one place to another in order to exchange information. In many situations, these records represented the most critical element in the health system due to misunderstanding, errors, and loss of information caused by their use. Nevertheless, its main drawback was the difficulty, or even the impossibility, to retrieve information from paper records when there were needs in the future and/or outside the hospital. This situation was largely inefficient, especially from the patient’s point of view. Indeed, he or she had to spend a lot of time moving to and from the hospital and supporting a great deal of stress to supply time and again the same information (often in an incomplete, vague, or erroneous manner), and eventually suffering for errors and/or unavailability of information previously stored in other records.