Noam ArztA recent article in HealthAffairs describes a significant decline in the number of both operational HIEs and HIEs in the planning stage from several years earlier. The authors note continuing barriers to broad-based HIE and a shift to vendor-driven exchange which diminishes the effectiveness of community-based networks. In effect, this translates to a shift away from geographic-based/dominated HIEs to product-dominated HIEs. We have already noted (see The Interoperability of Things) the lack of a national strategy on HIE, and ONC’s Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap barely mentions the concept.
This year at HIMSS in Las Vegas there was no shortage of talk about the “lack of usability” in EHRs. In the final HIMSS16 show daily (Thursday March 3, 2016) there were four articles (“When EHRs cause Harm,” “5 UX steps to Healthy Clinical apps,” “Nurse: We face severe IT usability problems,” and “The leading health IT issues? Poor usability and missing safeguards”) that addressed some aspect of EHR usability...Over the past few years we’ve worked with a number of EHR vendors on improving the usability of their solutions. We’ve noticed a number of items that seem to common to many of the systems, and this list contains some of the most common and highest priority usability issues that should be avoided in your EHR designs.
This is the second major release since popHealth version 3.0 was transitioned to the OSEHRA popHealth Community in 2014. It is the culmination of collaborative efforts by members of the OSEHRA popHealth Steering Work Group and the Developer Open Source Project Group. OSEHRA Organizational Member Zato Health co-funded the ONC certification and provided key technical support throughout the process, coordinating closely with the Connecticut Department of Social Services/ Medicaid. Group members from Northwestern University, eHealthConnecticut, Alabama State Medicaid, and Qualifacts all made significant code, expertise, and infrastructure contributions...
The advent of meaningful use is certainly responsible for increasing EHR adoption, but it hasn't ensured EHR usability and is likewise responsible oversaturating the EHR marketplace with health IT products which might have otherwise floundered without billions in EHR incentives. Recent research published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) finds that EHR usability is lacking among EHR vendors. 
I am tired of waiting. Millions of medical professionals and patients are tired of waiting.  We have been waiting for EHR interoperability since the dawn of EHRs in the 1960s. Enough is enough! Our goal is to achieve EHR interoperability through a grass roots coalition of medical professionals and patients who are tired of waiting. The simple life-saving ability of hospital EHRs to connect to one another so healthcare providers can easily and readily access patient data is not being addressed.  This type of issue is traditionally solved by industry or government initiatives. But so far they have not, and apparently will not solve it so I have decided to raise this issue through an outpouring of angry citizens, hospital patients, physicians and others being impacted.