9 Ways to Improve Health IT Interoperability and Patient Data Access

“The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) and the Bipartisan Policy Center recently issued a report outlining nine ways the public and private sector can work together to advance health IT interoperability and improve patient data access.

Many recommendations included in the report align with newly-released proposed rules from CMS and ONC intended to crack down on information blocking.

The report incorporates feedback from more than 100 clinicians and healthcare leaders from hospitals, health systems, health plans, life sciences organizations, health IT companies, and patients gathered in a year-long effort.

The report aims to streamline the flow of health information across health IT systems and care settings.

“Critical patient information is getting lost in translation when doctors and other clinicians try to share it across health systems or state lines,” said HLC President Mary R. Grealy. “This has detrimental effects on patient care because a clinician may not have the full picture of a patient’s history, or worse, has the wrong history altogether.”

Overall, recommendations in the report center on improving the business care for interoperability, strengthening technical infrastructure to support health data exchange, promoting the use of a common notice of information access across consent policies, and expanding public and private sector collaborative efforts.

“The recommendations in this report are designed to bring better data to the bedside, the exam room, and to patients,” said Bipartisan Policy Center co-founder Tom Daschle.

“Interoperability of systems, information sharing, and data access play a critical role in improving health outcomes, lowering heathcare costs, and improving the patient experience of care, as we move toward new healthcare delivery and payment systems,” continued Daschle.

To improve the business case for interoperability, HLC and the Bipartisan Policy Center recommended payers work with providers to align payment incentives…”

Via EHR Intelligence, continue reading this article.

View all Articles by: Melissa Clark, CCS-P