One of the elephants in the room regarding health technology is that in spite of all the talk, a meaningful level of interoperability has yet to be achieved in the 5700 hospitals across the country. A recent report to Congress from the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) shows that provider efforts are being held up by reasons beyond just financial ones. Here are the five major roadblocks to more widespread data sharing among caregivers, according to the ONC:
1. Lack of universal standards-based EHR systems’ adoption
2. Impact on providers’ day-to-day workflow
3. Complex privacy and security challenges associated with widespread HIE
4. Need for synchronous collective action among multiple stakeholders
5. Weak or misaligned incentives
Point #2 is Optimium Health’s sweet spot. Providing clinical workflow technology that seamlessly interfaces with EHR, scheduling, and practice management systems is at the heart of what we do. So we want to highlight what the ONC goes on to say about the need to incorporate workflow technology into a hospital’s interoperability strategies.
“Technology has reached the capability of making interoperability possible, but process innovation has yet to catch up. Existing processes must be redesigned to incorporate new technologies – a more prominent problem in the healthcare arena, mostly due to a lack of standardization.”
Included in the same report are ONC recommendations for processes to establish over the next six months in order to foster better interoperability. And things to watch out for: 1)Hospitals can have hundreds of IT systems, vendors have built proprietary databases but not everyone follows the same standards and 2) health systems fear sharing data with competitors and policymakers have not focused on health information exchange or EHR usability.
Click on this link for the full article: https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/onc-cites-security-incentive-woes-among-5-biggest-interoperability-roadblocks
If you would like more information on how Optimium Health can help your organization improve IT interoperability while lowering operational costs and enhancing care delivery, please contact: heather@optimiumhealth.com