A patient has been discharged from the hospital and referred to a physical therapist for routine sessions, coupled with home care visits. They also need to return to their attending physician for follow-up appointments.
The patient wasn’t given a printout of their medical records to bring with them to appointments. There is no official medication list compiling all prescribed drugs from multiple physicians.
The problem? The patient has an overwhelming to-do list on an unknown, confusing road they have never travelled down. Enter care coordination.
The power of care coordination
A care coordinator takes on the patient to-do lists and handles the tasks for them, guiding them through their care period. It’s estimated that healthcare organizations that provide exceptional care coordination through value-based care — focusing entirely on the patient and their needs — will save $296 per patient, per month.
Beyond that, patients feel the effects of smooth care coordination. Studies show as high as 44% fewer inpatient admissions when care is coordinated well.
However, during a recent home health care webinar nearly half of attendees agreed that care coordination and communication is the biggest hurdle with patient transitions. Many care coordinators feel their caseload is too large, and handling case management and data management would be easier with interoperability.
What is interoperability?
A buzzword in the technology industry, interoperability is the ability of technology systems to smoothly communicate and exchange data.
In healthcare, it allows for the instant and safe sharing of protected electronic health information. As a result of this easier communication, the amount of paperwork generated with each discharged patient has dropped significantly. Medical records can be accessed instantly. A list of all medications are available at any time.
Interoperability then and now
Interoperability creates an electronic pathway that bridges connections into a healthcare system that is still disjointed and vulnerable to human error.
This disjointed system is further impacted by information system fragmentation, a problem that has been historically caused by policy resulting from a limited view of healthcare needs. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standardized patient information protection in 1996, but EHR adoption was not incentivized until the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in 2009.
Since then, interoperability has been top of mind for many in the healthcare industry, but challenges have limited its progress. According to a 2018 Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) survey sponsored by Humana, a little over 70 percent of healthcare financial executives thought that data interoperability needed to improve within three years. However, three years after the survey, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed many weaknesses still exist today.
The value of interoperability
The pandemic has shown that it has never been more critical to have timely and accurate information. Finding a software that offers data interoperability is essential to the very lifeblood of an organization. Experts estimate that the lack of healthcare data interoperability is costing the United States health system $30 billion each year. Additionally, fragmented care coordination raises chronic disease costs by more than $4,500 per patient.
Interoperability in an electronic medical record software will eliminate many pain points organizations experience throughout daily operations, saving organizations time and money and facilitating better patient outcomes. This all stems from the ability to provide continuous care coordination across care settings, even telehealth.
Technology and data are integral to the future of healthcare. With the future healthcare being in the home, interoperability is essential for data to be shared between clinicians and physicians during telehealth visits. It is easy to see the value of interoperability will only grow more important.
Embracing interoperability
Producing interoperability can only be achieved with active involvement from both the stakeholders and the software engineers designing the program.
The vision for the solution must be set from the start, when determining what and how much data are exchanged and for what purpose. Engineers have their own vision in the creation process, but it must be aligned with the user’s needs.
The actual programming of the software and how it will work only comes after deciding where the information will go. The end result is making interoperability the central element of the solution.
Programs that are designed without these connections in place will not serve their businesses well over time. The healthcare industry is proof positive that frustrated healthcare providers are realizing they need better solutions and are steadily looking to those who can develop them.
When companies embrace interoperability, they embrace opportunity and liberating innovation. This instant connection and collaboration for a shared goal enables industries to work smarter and discover missed revenue. Most importantly, in healthcare it leads to a healthier and happier patient.
Tim Ingram is senior vice president of business development for Axxess, a home healthcare technology company. He is responsible for leading the business development team to build valuable industry partnerships and key product integrations that create solutions for Axxess clients. Prior to joining Axxess in February 2018, Ingram served as the regional administrator for Encompass Home Health and vice president of sales for Homecare Homebase, among other industry positions.
