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How Does Interoperability Work? For two or more systems to be interoperable, they must be able to exchange, interpret, and present shared data in a way that is understood by the other. This is accomplished with the establishment of syntactic interoperability, which involves adopting a common data format and common data structure protocols, followed by semantic interoperability, which involves the addition of metadata that links each data element to a controlled, shared vocabulary. Within this shared vocabulary are associated links to an ontology, which is a data model that represents a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships among those concepts. The adoption of these common standards enables the transmission of meaningful information that is independent of any information system. The benefits of interoperability include increased productivity, reduced costs, and reduced errors.