The eHealth Initiative recently published the results of its December 2016 survey on the "current state of progress toward achieving true interoperability" with the aim of highlighting the value of up-to-date technology and innovation in the healthcare industry. Using the eHealth 2020 Roadmap as a guiding point of reference, the survey assesses the industry's current status on interoperability, data access and privacy, patient and provider technology adoption, and data analytics.
The 2020 Roadmap functions as a guidebook to assuage these concerns and push the industry toward true interoperability. In conducting the survey, eHealth interviewed 125 anonymous respondents — 75 percent of whom were in healthcare delivery in varying capacities ranging from hospitals to ACOs.
As such, the following details some of the feedback from that survey.
Based on their perspectives of technology, 75 percent said that since 2008, technology has actually helped increase healthcare quality, while 68 percent agree that technology has helped promote team-based care concepts. Additionally, 32 percent agree that technology has helped decrease healthcare costs since 2008 — 42 percent disagree, however.
Of these same folks, 95 percent said they agree that strong interoperability capabilities are a key IT requirement for a successful transition to interoperability. Likewise, 85 percent said that current interoperability solutions in the market are not meeting their needs as we transition to value-based care, which is a bit of an eye-opening statement given the overwhelming support for the effort.
So, has great progress been made using technology to engage consumers? Yep, says 46 percent; nope, 33 percent say.
Where does interoperability have the greatest impact? Let's take a look:
- expediting access to externally sourced patient data
- identifying gaps in care during an encounter
- improving quality of care by closing care gaps with improved workflows
- enabling patient access to data from their medical records
- enabling patients to provide data
Interoperability and connectivity are quite important to these healthcare professionals. For example, providers want to gather EHR records across different organizations to support a holistic view of the patient and accountable care collaboration. This also includes access to patient records within the provider organization via several interfaces (labs, patient portal, third-party modules, etc.) to build a complete patient record.
Payer-provider interoperability is also important as they seek a way to close care gaps via access to missing information from payer. Reporting is also key where the exchange of data occurs for the regulatory reporting/industry wide data for research purposes.
Finally, closing out the results of the study, surveyors asked about their perspectives on regulations. Are they warranted?
Sixty percent do not believe current federal policies, committees and regulations are sufficient to help the nation attain interoperability by 2020. Of these, 69 percent agree additional federal incentives need to be created and/or redesigned to enable delivery system transformation, but there are mixed reactions on self-regulation — 35 percent agree on self-regulation, 39 percent disagree.
Overall, there is strong agreement that interoperability is needed for valued-based care. The majority feel interoperability solutions are providing benefits for value-based care.
Additionally, interoperability costs have an impact on organizations. The majority of feedback suggests interoperability is decreasing healthcare costs in their organizations, and many expect their budgets for IT to increase in the coming years.
The value of interoperability is dependent upon the type of info exchanged. Access to labs, tests and results are expected to be included in core platforms and seen as most valuable.
Connectivity across provider organizations is also important. Exchanging data for regulatory reporting and industrywide data for research purposes is not as important connectivity area for payer, provider and HIE organizations.
