From rising patient acuity and chronic staffing shortages to the accelerating shift toward value-based care, today’s healthcare environment is pushing clinicians to do more—with greater precision and fewer resources. In response, clinicians are demanding more from the technology that supports them—not just more features, but smarter, more connected systems that reduce friction and elevate care.

While hospitals have made notable investments in advanced monitors, ventilators, EMRs, and diagnostic platforms, these assets often remain isolated—each generating valuable data but failing to contribute to a cohesive clinical picture. This lack of true interoperability is no longer a technical inconvenience; it is a clinical risk.

In high-stakes areas such as neurology, respiratory care, and continuous patient monitoring, the ability to connect, synthesize, and act on data in real-time is essential. Interoperability is what transforms discrete devices into an intelligent network—enabling earlier interventions, more personalized treatments, and streamlined care delivery. It is not just the next frontier in healthcare technology; it is the foundation of a safer, more efficient, and more responsive care model.

The State of Interoperability in Modern Healthcare

Despite decades of digital advancement, the healthcare ecosystem remains deeply fragmented. Most systems still operate in silos, developed with proprietary interfaces or non-standard protocols that inhibit seamless data flow and coordinated care.

Key challenges include:

• Data fragmentation across different vendors and departments.
• Lack of standardization across EMRs and monitoring systems.
• Vendor reluctance to adopt open protocols that promote compatibility.
• Inconsistent technical infrastructure across institutions.

Several forces are now accelerating the need for interoperability:

• Patient safety initiatives are focusing on real-time data sharing to prevent adverse events.
• Workforce shortages are amplifying demand for technologies that reduce manual tasks and streamline workflows.
• The rise of remote care and telehealth is exposing the limits of closed, device-specific systems that can’t scale beyond the hospital.

Nihon Kohden is addressing interoperability challenges by developing a platform with open architecture—an appliance designed to reduce integration barriers, connect with existing hospital IT ecosystems, and support smoother clinical communication. This platform enables them to receive and share data from other devices. The result is a more connected, usable environment that gives hospitals access to open architecture capabilities without the cost and disruption of overhauling entire systems.

Why Interoperability Matters: Three Key Clinical Areas

1. Neurology: Faster, Smarter Diagnosis & Treatment

Speed is critical in treating seizures, strokes, and traumatic brain injuries. Neurological care often requires input from EEG systems, imaging results, labs, and bedside monitors, all of which may be housed in separate systems, making it more challenging to deliver the best quality of care.

Interoperability allows for real-time data aggregation and automated alerts across devices, speeding diagnosis and enabling multidisciplinary teams to respond as one, rather than in sequence. For instance, a connected EEG platform can provide early warning signs directly into a central monitoring system without delays caused by system incompatibility.

2. Ventilation: Smarter, Safer Respiratory Care

Patients on ventilators experience rapidly shifting conditions. Their care depends on synchronized data inputs (e.g., vitals, blood gases, respiratory trends, and EMR entries). When ventilators can communicate directly with monitors and EMRs, clinicians can track ventilation performance in real-time, spot deterioration earlier, and adjust settings accordingly. Interoperable ventilation systems reduce the need for constant manual correlation and support safer, more precise respiratory support.

3. Monitoring: The Foundation of Patient-Centered Care

Patient monitors generate a wealth of real-time information, but if this data doesn’t flow across systems, much of its value is lost.

Interoperable monitoring systems feed continuous data into EMRs and alert platforms, giving clinical teams hospital-wide visibility. This improves early detection of sepsis, arrhythmias, respiratory failure and more while supporting rapid response teams in delivering coordinated interventions.

While the case for interoperability is clear, the journey toward achieving it is anything but simple. Healthcare organizations and technology developers face a combination of technical and cultural hurdles that must be addressed in tandem to unlock the full potential of connected care.

Technical Challenges: Legacy Systems & Data Silos

One of the most significant barriers is the persistence of legacy infrastructure. Many hospitals and health systems rely on a patchwork of monitoring devices, EMRs, imaging systems and clinical software that were never designed to operate cohesively. These systems often use proprietary data formats or closed communication protocols, making it difficult to integrate new technologies or extract meaningful insights from multiple sources.

Inconsistent data standards further complicate efforts to create interoperability. Even when two devices serve a similar function, differences in formatting, terminology, or interface requirements can prevent seamless data exchange. As a result, much of the real-time data generated by modern devices remains underutilized – trapped in silos instead of flowing freely to the clinicians who need it.

Moreover, many institutions lack the IT resources or infrastructure required to implement enterprise-wide data integration. This is particularly true in rural or resource-limited settings, where budget constraints and staffing shortages limit the ability to upgrade aging systems.

Cultural Resistance: Inertia & Vendor Lock-In

Beyond the technical landscape, cultural dynamics also play a key role in new tech adoption. Some healthcare organizations are reluctant to overhaul existing systems due to concerns about cost, complexity, or potential workflow disruptions. Change management in healthcare environments, particularly those with overburdened clinical staff, can be a slow and cautious process.

On the vendor side, proprietary strategies have historically been used to build competitive advantage–an approach that, while understandable, can limit the openness needed for true interoperability. This is a reality across the industry, and one in which many technology providers, past and present, have played a part. Progress is now coming from a change in mindset: Developing open-architecture solutions that provide greater flexibility and strategic interconnectivity, allowing information to flow between different systems.

Rather than redesigning every device from the ground up, this approach focused on creating ways for existing technologies to connect—helping healthcare organizations make better use of the systems they already have while moving toward a more integrated future.

Device manufacturers may hesitate to enable broad compatibility with third-party platforms, fearing that openness could dilute differentiation or lead to loss of customer lock-in. But this siloed thinking no longer serves the needs of the modern healthcare system, where outcomes, efficiency, and patient safety depend on collaboration.

Solutions Already Underway

Despite these challenges, meaningful progress toward interoperability is taking shape. Because overhauling large, complex healthcare ecosystems is both costly and time-consuming, many health systems are instead exploring practical ways to connect disparate systems without pursuing full-scale replacement.

One approach gaining traction is the use of open-architecture platforms designed to act as a bridge between systems and devices. Instead of requiring every product to be redesigned, these platforms function as a flexible layer that can receive and exchange data from multiple sources – even when those sources were never built to communicate.

This strategy makes it possible to bring together diverse inputs—neurological data from EEG systems, ventilation metrics, or continuous physiological readings—and connect them into existing hospital information systems. In doing so, care teams can gain a more cohesive view of patients, interpret information quickly, and coordinate responses across departments without duplicating work.

At the heart of this model is a shift in thinking: Treating interoperability as an ecosystem capability rather than a feature of any single device. By enabling different technologies to “speak the same language,” open-architecture platforms help transform siloed data into actionable insights—improving workflows, enhancing patient safety, and paving the way for smarter, more responsive care delivery.

Looking Forward: Interoperability as the Foundation of Modern Care

Interoperability is no longer a future aspiration—it’s the foundation healthcare needs right now. As patient complexity rises and resources continue to tighten, siloed systems can no longer support the speed, precision, and coordination that modern care demands. The ability to connect data across devices, departments, and disciplines is what transforms disparate tools into a unified, intelligent care network.

By investing in platforms that bring information together into a single, more open system, hospitals and healthcare organizations can move closer to their ultimate goals of unlocking real-time insights, streamlining workflows, reducing clinician burden, and most importantly, improving patient safety.  

Looking ahead, interoperability will also serve as the springboard for the next wave of transformation: Predictive analytics, personalized treatment plans, and more scalable care models that reach beyond hospital walls. But realizing that vision requires methodical technical advancements and above all, a cultural commitment to collaboration, transparency, and system-wide thinking.

To truly advance care, interoperability must shift from being an IT aspiration to a shared clinical priority—one that guides innovation, purchasing decisions, and patient care strategies at every level.

Harsh Dharwad is President and CEO of Digital Health Solutions at Nihon Kohden, a global leader in connected patient monitoring, diagnostics, and digital health innovation. Founded in Japan in 1951, Nihon Kohden is a pioneer in transformational healthcare technology and the largest supplier of electroencephalography products worldwide. Its solutions—including pulse oximetry, arrhythmia analysis, wireless patient monitoring, and low-invasive blood volume monitoring—are used in more than 120 countries to advance precision, safety, and connectivity across the care continuum. Learn more at nihonkohden.com and follow Nihon Kohden on Facebook and LinkedIn.