The Importance Of Health Care Interoperability

Two of these barriers are lack of interoperability (the ability to exchange information) among computer systems and privacy issues. The Markle Foundation fosters collaboration in both private and public sectors through an initiative called Connecting to Health, which seeks to improve patient care by promoting standards for electronic medical information. In addition, the Markle Foundation has provided information and promoted meaningful use and the development of HIEs

Integrated Care Collaboration maintains a health information exchange called the ICare system. Through this system Integrated Care Collaboration has worked towards identifying needs of Central Texas and improving healthcare access to those who need it. Integrated Care collaboration has been nationally recognized and has been accredited with the the Texas Health Information Exchange Accreditation Program (TXHIEAP) and the Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program (DTAAP). Both accreditation programs are dedicated to ensuring proper use of HIEs and compliance with federal and state laws as well as HIPAA. Texas Health Information Exchange Accreditation program focuses on proper exchange of patient information while Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program is geared toward recognizing excellence in data processing and transactions

Clinical integration is the overall purpose of an integrated physician model. Clinical integration provides an opportunity to coordinate services through centralized scheduling, electronic health records, clinical pathways, management of chronic diseases, and innovative quality improvement programs (Harrison, 2016). This needs to be a major factor in the planning process. When you have the capability and access to an patients care plan because of greater resources and having all of the necessary silos to provide such care, well then it becomes a much smoother process and as a result this can play a factor into timely care and quality of care, as well it can contribute to cost reducing factors such as outpatient care. The electronic health records allow each silo to have access to treatments and testing that has already been done, this further improves quality, timely, and costly care. The clinical pathways allow creating a standardized care plan for patients that over time become more effective and efficient. The management of chronic diseases before clinical integration could be very costly and painful, requiring the patient to see multiple facilities and doctors with limited communication between the different facilities. With success in clinical integration these patients can have easy access to their providers and information because it would all be tied together, it can reduce the stress of knowing everything themselves because the information would already be

Electronic health information exchange allows doctors, nurses, pharmacists, other health care providers and patients to access and securely share a patient’s vital medical information electronically improving the speed, quality, safety and cost of patient care. In this paper I am going to explain the challenges of exchanging health information, privacy and security concerns, cost of set up and maintenance. Also, the three different types of exchanges. The benefits of health information exchange.

McDonald (1997) points out that health care data is siloed in multiple areas that are inaccessible to others. This kind of management of patient data does not serve the patient well. It is for this reason that SCEMS approached Providence and Swedish hospitals to propose implementation of HDE. Moreover, as stated in the McDonald article a feasible way to integrate data from disparate sources is through the use of interfaces such as the HDE. In addition, a problem that exists in the integration of these two data sources is the fact that the hospital system communicates via the standard HL7 language, while the pre-hospital system communicates via XML. Fortunately, the HDE structure accounts for this difference by translating back and forth between the two different languages.

Two organizations migrating to a common health information system would need a system that meets current regulatory requirements, meets the needs of the combined organization and their practice environment. The implementation of a common health information system would require an interdisciplinary group of forward thinking innovators, and an interoperable electronic medical record system that includes standard nursing terminology.

Interoperability is the way information is shared across an organization. Sharing information across all avenues of health care is imperative to quality patient care. Coordination between all members of the health care team can occur through a congruent system, eliminating unnecessary phone calls and paper work that take away from patient care. The sharing of information electronically reduces the likelihood that files could be lost or stolen which creates a liability for all those involved in the care of the patient.

The benefits of interoperability are discussed from many years relating its facilities regarding government and population. Interoperability is significant in linking health and human services to

Healthcare systems are highly complex, fragmented, and use multiple information technology systems and vendors who incorporate different standards resulting in inefficiency, waste, and medical errors (Healthinformatics, 2016). A patient 's medical information often gets trapped in silos, which prevents information from being shared with members of the healthcare community (Healthinformatics, 2016). With increasing healthcare costs, a system needed to be created that would lead to the development and nationwide implementation of an interoperable health information technology system to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare. Introducing the National Health Information Network (NHIN), this organization can be defined as a set of

Health Information Exchange (HIE) supports both transferring and sharing of health related information that is usually stored in multiple organizations, while maintaining the context and integrity of the information being exchanged (HIE, 2014). The goal of health information exchange is to expedite access to and retrieve clinical data to provide safe efficient, effective, equitable, timelier patient-centered care (HIE, 2014). HIE “provides access and retrieval of patient information to authorized users in order to provide safe, efficient, effective, and timely patient care” (HIE, 2014).

Improve coordination of care through the enhancement of interoperability among internal and external partners in care

Health Information Exchange is the electronic movement of healthcare information amongst organizations according to the national standards. HIE as it is widely known, serves the purpose of providing a safe, timely, and efficient way of accessing or retrieving patient clinical data. Health Information Exchange allows for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other vital healthcare professionals to have appropriate access and securely share vital medical information regarding patient care. Health Information Exchange has been in efforts of developing for over 20 years in the United States. In 1990 the Community Health Management Information Systems (CHMIS) program was formed by the Hartford Foundation to foster a development of a centralized data repository in seven different geographically defined communities. Many of the communities struggled in securing a cost-effective technology with interoperable data sources and gaining political support. In the mid-1990s a similar initiative began known as the Community Health Information Networks (CHINs) with the intention of sharing data between providers in a more cost-effective manner. In 2004, the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research Health Information Technology Portfolio was funded $166 million in grants and contracts to improve the quality and safety to support more patient-centered care. This was the beginning of the progress we have seen in HIE today. Health Information Exchange devolvement serves the purpose of improving

Brailer (2005) acknowledges that a sizeable number of citizens receive treatment from multiple providers at a time. Interoperability is a gateway for many business ventures in healthcare to accommodate for patients being admitted in multiple provider organizations. All healthcare professionals, especially managers, must communicate effectively. A good example of interoperability is transformation of electronic medical records, or recruiting physician specialists to operate on a specific procedure (Hellberg & Gronlund, 2013).

In health care, patients’ lives are in the hands of the health care practitioners, health care organizations, insurance companies, and to some degree, even health care technology. The growth and future implications of evidence-based medicine (EBM) through improvement of technology in health care are important today, because health care practitioners and organizations want to ultimately decrease cost, improve quality of care, and increase access to health care (Glandon, Smaltz, & Slovensky, 2014, p. 28). One way to achieve these goals is through the implementation and improvement of EBM and interoperability which will enhance the efficiency of work production resulting in these positive outcomes. According to Glandon, Smaltz, and Slovensky (2014), EBM is an “information management and learning strategy that seeks to integrate clinical expertise with the best evidence available to make effective clinical decisions that will ultimately improve patient care,” (p. 6). “Interoperability is the ability of different information and communications technology systems and software applications to communicate, to exchange data accurately, effectively, and consistently, and to use information that has been exchanged,” (Iroju, Soriyan, Gambo, & Olaleke, 2013, para. 1). Without interoperability and EBM, fundamental data and information such as patient records cannot be easily shared across and within enterprises having a direct impact on the quality of care. It

As the implementation of electronic health records (EHR) progress nationwide, the concepts of interoperability and health information exchange (HIE) must be discussed. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (2005, p. 2) define interoperability as “the ability of health information systems to work together within and across organizational boundaries in order to advance the effective delivery of healthcare for individuals and communities.” Interoperability is the enabling of two systems, including those that do not share