3 Conditions that Must be Met to Make Interoperability a Reality

3 Conditions that Must be Met to Make Interoperability a Reality

The term “interoperability” holds different meanings for different people. While we all would agree that the primary goal of interoperability is to make sharing data easier in order to improve outcomes and lower costs, there are varying perceptions about what that looks like. FHIR has been great at giving us a common set of protocols and standards to work from, but how we connect and how data actually gets shared are still open challenges.
In a truly interoperable healthcare ecosystem, I strongly believe data wouldn’t need to be requested, aggregated, and validated each time it’s needed. And it wouldn’t be limited to specific…

Continue Reading
2021 Annual Meeting: SDOH Information Exchange Innovation, Referrals, Consent, and Equity

2021 Annual Meeting: SDOH Information Exchange Innovation, Referrals, Consent, and Equity

March 29, 2021This session will explore innovative efforts for SDOH information exchange and interoperable referrals, along with considerations for consent and equity. The session will highlight initiatives from1) CyncHealth, describing the use of HIE to enhance SDOH collaboration in Nebraska2) San Diego Health Connect, noting relevant take-aways from their 2019 LEAP Project for consent and reducing health disparities3) Ohio Health Information Partnership, describing their efforts on SDOH referrals4) Bronx RHIO, discussing community-based health IT efforts to address SDOH, and5) The Gravity Project to provide an update on progress toward SDOH core data for interoperability and standards-based information exchange.Brett Andriesen, ONC, ModeratorElizabeth…

Continue Reading
Community Clinics Look to EHR Implementation to up Patient Experience

Community Clinics Look to EHR Implementation to up Patient Experience

– Texas-based Legacy Community Health Clinic has announced it will transition from its outdated legacy system and move forward with an EHR implementation that will drive the patient experience while improving patient data access. The project, funded by a $1 million federal grant, will connect the health clinic’s 55 locations through one system and provide over 200,000 patients with continual data access. Providing patients access to their medical records was challenging for the community health providers, who previously had to fax health information. Faxed patient health data often sits on the fax machine for hours or even days before it gets…

Continue Reading