What it provides is a way to replicate some or all of the record to other health institutions. Say, you share the patient's medication list with the hospital - they also keep a copy. When you prescribe a new medicine, the hospital's copy also gets updated.

And yes, arguably this is just another version of interoperability. However, if you want to share healthcare information, in a way which allows institutions to have freedom, it's unavoidable. The concept of interoperability isn't bad, just the implementation is.

The alternative is all patients records are kept, and accessed from the same place. However, this is very tricky. Many governments have tried to make national health record storage systems, which had immense budgets, and didn't really work out. Often with systems controlled by one party, it's hard to work on ideas which don't fit their goals. Say if you have this great idea for a new format to manage diabetes - that wont fit into their standard format, and you'll have to work outside of their system. Not to mention the control over the population this organisation would have.

Patient owned and controled systems are often suggested, and have been built, but I've never seen one work. Patients expect their doctor to manage their record - and they pay for them. It would be a huge challenge to get every patient to pay their yearly 'health record server fees'.

On top of that, heath records also belong to the doctors - legally in NZ they have to keep a copy of your record for 10 years since your last visit. For their own liability they need access.

In my mind only two models can really work - Goverment run systems which are run better than current systems - A better take on the interoperability model