Cheerio, TEFCA

Britain's proposed Single Patient Record reveals how much more authority interoperability policy can carry when it's backed by legislation.

It’s sorta fun to hearken back to high school days and look over the shoulder of your classmate to see how their work compares to yours. In terms of technology, the functional equivalent of that might be taking your competitor’s product for a test drive (presuming it’s consumer facing or PLG).

But one manifestation that we don’t do quite enough is that behavior at a national level - the comparative policy glance. Different countries have solved different interoperability problems. Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is read another country's legislation and question whether you should just copy their work.

Over in the United Kingdom (cheerio, mates), Parliament is mid-debate on the NHS Modernisation Bill, which includes a statutory framework for a Single Patient Record (one longitudinal record spanning GPs, hospitals, and social care). Sections 250E and 250F of the bill are where the fun stuff lives: