Patient data interoperability sounds like industry jargon, but it’s a vital piece of providing timely and accurate patient care. Since 1996, when the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) became law, there have been good advances in patient data interoperability, but as a whole, the industry has not embraced them.
Sharing data through faxing and CDs is still very common. As recently as 2023, between 30 and 47 percent of hospitals across 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 of their system and a meager 30 percent of skilled nursing facilities exchanged data outside of their walls, according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
Relying on outdated record-sharing methods can delay the opportunity for patients to take advantage of life-altering care. Hospitals and healthcare systems can do better.
The time to referral should be days, not weeks (or longer)! A leading opportunity to improve patient outcomes is by decreasing 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 confusing at the same time.
In 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) was passed, incentivizing the use of electronic medical records (EMRs). This drove the use of Electronic Health Record systems (EHRs) in acute care hospitals to 84 percent by 2015. As recently as 2022 the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) was published to establish universal governance and policies for interoperability, simplify the secure exchange of information and allow individuals to gather their healthcare information.
While we have made leaps, the challenges are still vast. The number of channels to obtain records has grown:
- Direct to provider
- Direct to ROI (release of information) vendor
- HIE (health information exchange)
- Network
Within those channels, there are still a wide array of methods for information to be exchanged:
- API
- Portal
- Secure messages
- Fax/call
Progress has been made, and the infrastructure is there, but it’s not being leveraged by everyone or even by every organization. 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? In which channel do those exist? What is the fastest method to receive them? How do they request and receive those records? The list of questions goes on and on.
Now is the time for healthcare systems to embrace interoperable technology to gain a competitive market edge and improve patient outcomes.
We have the capability to seamlessly collect, clinically organize and deliver comprehensive medical histories for patients — but why are hospitals and clinics still sending faxes and calling providers? If these organizations were to fully embrace the available technology, it would not only improve patient outcomes but enhance the clinician experience as well.
One of the largest delays in care is caused by the time it takes to collect, organize and deliver medical histories. Without access to a patient’s comprehensive past, that critical first appointment can be delayed for days or weeks and can negatively impact potentially life-changing treatments.
Maximizing healthcare interoperability and even integrating technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help efficiently determine the best, most efficient route to gather and request complete medical histories. This allows medical professionals to offer patients more immediate care and enables enhanced communication between physician providers and patients.
The benefits of embracing healthcare interoperability include improved clinician experience, more meaningful first appointments, reduced patient leakage, reduced time to treatment and improved patient outcomes. Leveraging EHRs and supporting healthcare technology helps providers connect efficiently with other providers and release of Information (ROI) vendors, HIEs and networks in the right way. From there, clinically organized, comprehensive medical histories can be delivered in a timely manner.
Instead of physicians waiting days or weeks and then having to sift through hundreds of pages of disparate medical records to find a few items of importance, healthcare systems can embrace interoperability and AI to decrease the time to treatment for patients. Requests for records, images and pathology materials can be received directly through EHRs and, in turn, a clinically organized, complete medical history can be delivered. That information can also appear seamlessly within the clinical workflow.
Clinicians can avoid the need to hunt for information within a mountain of unorganized records and, instead, spend more time focusing on their patients.
Let’s all keep the goal in sight: Advance the delivery of life-altering care by providing clinicians with clinically organized patient histories in a timely manner—a top solution to help improve patient outcomes.
About Dan Torrens
Dan Torrens is CEO of eHealth Technologies, a leading healthcare technology company advancing the delivery of life-altering care through innovative record retrieval and image exchange solutions.
