Healthcare Interoperability is Falling Short. How Do We Address It?

The following is a guest article by A. John Blair, III, MD, CEO at MedAllies It’s been well-documented for years that the healthcare industry has an interoperability problem.  Frequently fragmented and incomplete patient records may lead to negative downstream consequences, such as delayed and inefficient care, avoidable risks to patient safety, greater administrative burden on healthcare organizations, and excessive costs.  The commercial efforts to date to push interoperability forward have made true advances. For example, 70% of hospitals and over half of ambulatory providers are connected to a national network. Additionally, the treatment use case has significantly advanced under respective push and pull models. However, the industry has stalled on connecting many hospitals and ambulatory providers to a national network – and the challenge is greater among other types of care provider groups (post-acute care, home health, and emergency medical services, for example), other stakeholder groups (including payers and federal agencies), and consumers.  Fortunately, change is coming soon. The Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, also known as TEFCA, will soon launch, with Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs) acting as a catalyst and change agent to re-invigorate momentum within the interoperability movement.  The ultimate vision for healthcare interoperability is for the healthcare user experience to appear as if all entities are operating within a ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Interoperability A. John Blair III Health Data Exchange Healthcare Interoperability MedAllies QHIN QHINS TEFCA Source Type: blogs