Sorting through EHR Interoperability: A Modern Day Tower of Babel That Corrects Problems for Clinical Laboratories, Other Providers
Despite the widespread adoption of electronic health record (EHR) systems and billions in government incentives, lack of interoperability still blocks potential benefits of digital health records, causing frustration among physicians, medical labs, and patients
Clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups understand the complexity of today’s electronic health record (EHR) systems. The ability to easily and securely transmit pathology test results and other diagnostic information among multiple providers was the entire point of shifting the nation’s healthcare industry from paper-based to digital health records. However, despite recent advances, true interoperability between disparate health networks remains elusive.
One major reason for the current situation is that multi-hospital health systems and health networks still use EHR systems from different vendors. This fact is well-known to the nation’s medical laboratories because they must spend money and resources to maintain electronic lab test ordering and resulting interfaces with all of these different EHRs.
Healthcare IT News highlighted the scale of this problem in recent coverage. Citing data from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Logic database, they note that—when taking into account affiliated providers—the typical health network engages with as many as 18 different electronic medical record (EMR) vendors. Similarly, hospitals may be engaging with as many as 16 different EMR vendors.
The graphics above illustrates why interoperability is the most important hurdle facing healthcare today. Although the shift to digital is well underway, medical laboratories, physicians, and patients still struggle to communicate data between providers and access it in a universal or centralized manner. (Images copyright: Healthcare IT News.)
The lack of interoperability forces healthcare and diagnostics facilities to develop workarounds for locating, transmitting, receiving, and analyzing data. This simply compounds the problem.
According to a 2018 Physician’s Foundation survey, nearly 40% of respondents identified EHR design and interoperability as the primary source of physician dissatisfaction. It has also been found to be the cause of physician burnout, as Dark Daily reported last year in, “EHR Systems Continue to Cause Burnout, Physician Dissatisfaction, and Decreased Face-to-Face Patient Care.”
Pressure from Technology Giants Fuels Push for Interoperability
According to HITECH Answers, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has paid out more than $38-billion in EHR Incentive Program payments since April 2018.
Experts, however, point out that government incentives are only one part of the pressure vendors are seeing to improve interoperability.
“There needs to be a regulatory push here to play referee and determine what standards will be necessary,” Blain Newton, Executive Vice President, HIMSS Analytics, told Healthcare IT News. “But the [EHR] vendors are going to have to do it because of consumer demand, as things like Apple Health Records gain traction.”
Dark Daily covered Apple’s progress into organizing protected health information (PHI) and personal health records (PHRs) earlier this year in, “Apple’s Update of Its Mobile Health App Consolidates Data from Multiple EHRs and Makes It Easier to Push Clinical Laboratory Data to Patients.” It is one of the latest examples of Silicon Valley tech companies attempting to jump into the health sector and providing patients and consumers access to the troves of medical data created in their lifetime.
Another solution, according to TechTarget, involves developing application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow tech companies and EHR vendors to achieve better interoperability by linking information in a structured manner, facilitating secure data transmission, and powering the next generation of apps that will bring interoperability ever closer to a reality.
TechTarget reported on how University of Utah Hospital’s five hospital/12 community clinic health network, and Intermountain Healthcare, also in Utah, successfully used APIs to develop customized interfaces and apps to improve accessibility and interoperability with their Epic and Cerner EHR systems.
Diagnostic Opportunities for Clinical Laboratories
As consumers gain increased access to their data and healthcare providers harness the current generation of third-party tools to streamline EHR use, vendors will continue to feel pressure to make interoperability a native feature of their EHR systems and reduce the need to rely on HIT teams for customization.
For pathology groups, medical laboratories, and other diagnosticians who interact with EHR systems daily, the impact of interoperability is clear. With the help of tech companies, and a shift in focus from government incentives programs, improved interoperability might soon offer innovative new uses for PHI in diagnosing and treating disease, while further improving the efficiency of clinical laboratories that face tightening budgets, reduced reimbursements, and greater competition.
—Jon Stone
Related Information:
Why EHR Data Interoperability Is Such a Mess in 3 Charts
EHR Incentive Program Status Report April 2018
New FDA App Streamlines EHR Patient Data Collection for Researchers
AAFP Nudges ONC toward EHR Interoperability
A New Breed of Interoperable EHR Apps Is Coming, but Slowly
Top Interoperability Questions to Consider during EHR Selection
EHR Design, Interoperability Top List of Physician Pain Points
2018 Survey of America’s Physicians: Practice Patterns & Perspectives
ONC: 93% of Hospitals Have Adopted Most Recent EHR Criteria, but Most Lag in Interoperability
Open Standards and Health Care Transformation: It’s Finally Delivering on the Value It Promised
