A Manifesto for Healthcare Interoperability

First, clinical data is a heritage of human kind, thus sacred. The integrity, coherence, and security of medical information transcends commercial interests and technological convenience.

Second, technology must serve humanity, not enslave it. Healthcare tools should simplify the healer’s work, not burden it with complexity.

Third, interoperable healthcare technology must be accessible to all providers, not just large institutions with deep pockets.

Fourth, in healthcare, the doctrine of vendor lock-in must be rejected. Healthcare providers must retain sovereign control over the data they collect and the insights they generate.

Fifth, interoperability stands above profit. Open standards like DICOM and HL7 are not obstacles to overcome, but foundations upon which ethical healthcare technology must be built.

Sixth, for our products, depth takes precedence over breadth. Rather than building comprehensive systems that do everything, our focused solutions must excel within their domain while connecting seamlessly to the broader ecosystem.

Seventh, this work transcends business—it is a calling. Healthcare ecosystems must be governed by openness, simplicity, and integrity in all technological decisions.

Eighth, transparency and collaboration are paramount. Medical informatics is complex, implementations are challenging, and many hurdles have already been solved. These solutions must be reused, human resources are too valuable to waste by re-inventing the same things over and over again.

This is our covenant with the healthcare community. This is our commitment to the future of medical technology: a future awaits where asking for proprietary integration is as absurd as asking FedEx to ship without containers. When clinical data exchange through open standards will become as fundamental as standardized shipping is today, we will have reached our goal.