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Patient data interoperability This sounds like industry jargon, but it is an essential part of providing timely and accurate patient care. Since 1996, when the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) took effect, there have been notable advances in patient data interoperability, but overall the industry has not adopted them.
Sharing data by fax and CD is still very common. As recently as 2023, between 30 and 47 percent of hospitals of all sizes reported still using fax or mail to send and receive patient records, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Only 40 percent of hospitals electronically integrated data from other hospitals outside their system and only 30 percent of skilled nursing facilities exchanged data outside their walls, according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
Relying on outdated methods of sharing records can delay patients' ability to receive life-changing care. Hospitals and health systems can do better.
SEO time frame should be days, not weeks (or more)! One of the biggest opportunities to improve patient outcomes is to reduce the time it takes for patients to receive appropriate treatment and get on the road to recovery as quickly as possible.
Healthcare interoperability – it’s so promising, but at the same time confusing.
In 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was passed, encouraging the use of electronic medical records (EMR). This increased the use of electronic health record (EHR) systems in acute care hospitals to 84% by 2015. As recently as 2022, the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) was published to establish universal governance and interoperability policies, simplify the secure system. information exchange and allow individuals to gather their health information.
Although we have made progress, the challenges remain immense. The number of channels for obtaining recordings has increased:
- Direct to supplier
- Direct to ROI provider (information dissemination)
- HIE (Health Information Exchange)
- Network
Within these channels, there is still a wide range of information exchange methods:
- API
- Portal
- Secure messages
- Fax/call
Progress has been made and the infrastructure is there, but not everyone, or even all organizations, are taking advantage of it. This makes the process more complex than it needs to be. If a provider needs records and images for a patient, where do they start? What channel do they exist on? What is the fastest method to receive them? How do they request and receive these files? The list of questions goes on and on.
Now is the time for health systems to adopt interoperable technology to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace and improve patient outcomes.
We have the ability to collect, clinically organize, and seamlessly provide comprehensive medical histories to patients – but why are hospitals and clinics still faxing and calling providers? If these organizations fully adopted the technology available, it would not only improve patient outcomes, but also the clinician experience.
One of the biggest delays in care is the time it takes to collect, organize, and transmit medical histories. Without access to a patient's full history, that critical first appointment can be delayed by days or even weeks and negatively impact potentially life-changing treatments.
Maximizing healthcare interoperability and even integrating technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help effectively determine the best and most efficient route to collecting and requesting a complete medical history. This allows healthcare professionals to provide more immediate care to patients and improve communication between physician providers and patients.
The benefits of adopting healthcare interoperability include an improved clinical experience, more meaningful first appointments, reduced patient leakage, reduced treatment time, and better patient outcomes. Benefit EHR and healthcare technology support helps providers effectively connect with other providers and disseminate information (ROI) from providers, HIEs, and networks in the right way. From there, a comprehensive, clinically organized medical history can be provided in a timely manner.
Instead of doctors waiting days or weeks and then having to sift through hundreds of pages of disparate medical records to find a few important items, health systems can adopt interoperability and AI to reduce patient turnaround time. . Requests for records, images, and pathology materials can be received directly through EHRs and, in turn, a complete, clinically organized medical history can be provided. This information can also appear seamlessly in the clinical workflow.
Clinicians can avoid having to search for information in a mountain of unorganized records and, instead, spend more time focusing on their patients.
Let's all keep the goal in sight: to advance the delivery of life-changing care by providing clinicians with clinically organized patient histories in a timely manner: an ideal solution to help improve patient outcomes.
About Dan Torrens
Dan Torrens is CEO of eHealth Technologies, a leading health technology company that advances the delivery of life-changing care through innovative records retrieval and image exchange solutions.