Why Data Interoperability Is the Lifeblood of the Digital Economy

By Virginia Fletcher, CTO / CIO

Across the arc of my career, from connecting the world's largest supply chains, to ensuring real-time funds movement in fintech, to improving patient care in healthcare, to enabling student success in edtech, one thread has been constant: data interoperability is not a technical nice-to-have; it is a strategic necessity.

In every industry, organizations that treat data like a liquid asset, able to flow securely, seamlessly, and meaningfully, are the ones who unlock innovation, customer success, and lasting advantage. When interoperability is strong, systems integrate easily, customers achieve outcomes faster, and ecosystems flourish. When it is weak, friction, fragmentation, and lost opportunity are inevitable.

The Strategic Importance of Standards

At the core of interoperability lies the need for common standards. Without shared frameworks, integration becomes brittle and error-prone, while innovation slows to a crawl.

In healthcare, standards like FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) have been transformational, allowing clinical and administrative data to be exchanged between providers, payers, and third-party platforms in a consistent way. In education, initiatives such as Ed-Fi and LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) standards have provided the blueprints for sharing student information, academic records, and learning outcomes across diverse systems.

Standards matter because they lower the barrier to entry, promote scale, and future-proof investments. They shift the market from fragmented, point-to-point integrations to open ecosystems where innovation thrives.

Security, Governance, and the Foundation of Trust

Interoperability without security is simply irresponsible. The ability to move data must always be paired with the ability to protect it.

In healthcare, this means aligning with HIPAA, HITRUST, and emerging frameworks around patient consent management. In education, it means adhering to FERPA, COPPA, and ensuring that the confidentiality of student information is respected at every touchpoint.

Governance is the silent engine behind trusted interoperability. Access controls, audit logs, purpose-based access, and clear data stewardship models are essential to ensure that data moves only where it should, and is used only how it should be. Trust is built when governance is embedded in the very fabric of interoperability, not bolted on as an afterthought.

The Bold Move: Becoming the Data Fabric

Some companies don't just participate in the data ecosystem, they become the fabric through which entire industries connect.

In healthcare, companies like Datavant, Particle Health, 1upHealth, Health Gorilla, and Redox are leading the way as trusted data exchanges and interoperability hubs. They enable providers, payers, life sciences companies, and researchers to exchange health data securely and at scale, unlocking better outcomes for patients and faster innovation in clinical research.

In education, organizations such as Clever, Canvas, PowerSchool, and Edlink have taken on a similar role, becoming the connective tissue between learning management systems, assessment tools, and student information systems. They allow schools and edtech providers to integrate quickly, deliver personalized learning experiences, and create richer ecosystems of educational innovation.

There are also big tech players, such as AWS with their HealthLake and Snowflake, with their Healthcare & Life Sciences Data Cloud, whose platforms are on the leading edge of the data fabric movement.

Being a data fabric isn’t just a technical achievement, it is a strategic platform play. It creates network effects, positions companies as indispensable partners, and unlocks the ability to orchestrate entirely new business models.

Making Data Actionable: The Real Prize

Seamless data exchange is only the beginning. The ultimate goal is to make data actionable, to turn raw information into timely insights that empower better decisions.

In healthcare, actionable interoperability means surfacing clinical recommendations at the point of care, reducing the time from diagnosis to treatment, and supporting population health management initiatives. For providers, actionable data can mean more accurate reimbursements, lower administrative burden, and better outcomes for patients.

In education, actionable data enables real-time intervention when students show early signs of struggling, informs curriculum adjustments, and enables predictive analytics to improve graduation rates and student success.

When organizations move from exchanging data to operationalizing it, they unlock a multiplier effect, not only improving their own offerings but deeply enriching the experiences and outcomes of their customers’ customers.

Emerging Trends Shaping the Future of Data Interoperability

Several emerging trends are reshaping the landscape of interoperability:

Data Cleanrooms are becoming essential in industries where privacy and compliance concerns are paramount. They allow organizations to collaborate on sensitive datasets without exposing raw data, preserving confidentiality while enabling richer insights.

Privacy-Preserving Analytics techniques such as federated learning and homomorphic encryption are gaining traction, enabling decentralized analysis without data leaving its secure environment.

Composable Data Ecosystems are on the rise, where modular, API-first components allow organizations to flexibly build, extend, and evolve their data architectures without re-platforming.

Decentralized Identity and Consent Management models are emerging to give users (patients, students, customers) more control over who accesses their data, when, and for what purpose.

Real-Time Interoperability is becoming the new benchmark, particularly in areas like value-based healthcare and adaptive learning systems, where stale data means missed opportunities.

Architectural Best Practices for Building Interoperability

To fully realize the benefits of interoperability, organizations must architect with intent:

An API-first design philosophy ensures that systems are modular, flexible, and built for external consumption, not closed silos. Event-driven architectures, using technologies like pub/sub messaging, allow systems to process and react to data in real time, critical for dynamic industries.

Standardized data models aligned with industry frameworks like FHIR and Ed-Fi reduce integration friction and promote ecosystem-wide consistency. Security and privacy by design must be non-negotiable: encryption, consent capture, identity federation, and zero-trust security models should be embedded at every layer.

Middleware layers or interoperability gateways can normalize and translate data between formats, abstracting complexity and reducing coupling between systems. Finally, rich observability, with logging, monitoring, and tracing at the interoperability layer, is essential for ensuring reliability, compliance, and trust.

Architectures that prioritize these principles will build ecosystems that are not just interoperable today, but adaptable for the opportunities and challenges of tomorrow.

Final Thoughts

Interoperability isn't just about moving data, it’s about moving industries forward.

When companies embrace open standards, build trusted data exchange ecosystems, operationalize actionable insights, and invest in modern architectures, they don't just improve their own products—they elevate entire industries. They create opportunities for better healthcare, better education, and ultimately, better lives.

From my early work connecting supply chains, to helping financial systems move billions of dollars daily, to enabling providers to deliver better care and educators to unlock student potential, one thing has become clear: Interoperability isn't an integration task. It’s a strategic, architectural, and ethical commitment to building a better future.

The organizations that understand this will be the ones that define the next generation.