What is data interoperability?

This episode of Techsplainers explores data interoperability - the critical ability for systems to seamlessly exchange, integrate, and use data across an organization. We examine how interoperable data must exist in consistent formats, combine easily with other information, and adhere to established standards. The discussion illuminates why interoperability matters, using the analogy of a cookbook with mixed measurement systems to demonstrate how data incompatibility creates inefficiencies and errors across healthcare, finance, and emergency services. We explore the four progressive levels of interoperability (transport, syntactic, semantic, and organizational) and the methods organizations use to achieve them, including standardizing formats, establishing shared terminology, managing metadata, and implementing APIs. The episode connects this week's previous topics - metadata, data lineage, and data catalogs - showing how they work together as building blocks of a comprehensive interoperability strategy that unlocks the estimated 68% of enterprise data currently unused due to accessibility issues.

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Narrated by Dan Segal