Accelerate Interoperability without Increasing Patient Burden
September 21, 2020 - In a recent Fierce Healthcare article by Kim Huynh and Nazim Dzabic, the authors were spot on to say that changes are needed to empower patients with their health data. Indeed, we should all have quick and convenient access to our personal health records. But empowering patients with data appropriate for them, and leveraging patients to enable interoperability between and among providers are two very different things.
Yes, health data interoperability is multi-dimensional and just plain complicated, but that’s all the more reason not to expect provider and care team interoperability to be resolved by patients “connecting the dots” between their extended care team. That would be the electronic version of what patients have had to do for years: physically gather paper records or CD’s of images from several providers, specialists, and hospitals, and carrying them to the next appointment. It’s wrong in the paper world, and just as wrong to replicate in the electronic world.
Photo by Zach Vessels
It’s hard enough to help patients understand their diagnoses and leverage their data to align with wellness information, public health trends, medical interventions, and recommendations to drive the right behaviors. We shouldn’t ask patients to be the interoperability conduit for providers and their extended delivery team, too.
Asking patients to provide the missing link for interoperable health data across their various caregivers is like asking people to set up their own telephone network among their family, friends, employer, and businesses they frequent.
A while back, I was at a Chicago meeting of the CARIN Alliance (which I enthusiastically support!), where one of the speakers told the story of her herculean work to gather her husband’s medical information from several hospitals and specialists and get “the box-full of paper” to second-opinion doctors who eventually saved his life. While she supported the idea of patient advocates being able to easily gather digital records for the same purpose, she mused several times that the most obvious need was for doctors and hospitals to be able to share this information ‘without any help from anyone.’
Now is the time—especially with the fractured systems that came to light during the COVID pandemic—to break down the barriers between all healthcare providers. We already have privacy rules at the federal and state levels in place and the networks, connectivity, and interoperability technologies to span the EHR ecosystem. We even have valuable incentives in place to support providers in expanding data exchange thanks to Promoting Interoperability, the upcoming CMS Final Rule, and others. We just need innovative players to step up and solve multi-dimensional challenges for healthcare delivery organizations, so that interoperability is not a burden, but a benefit for all participants.
From small physician practices to mega-health systems, to the broad coalition of extended care team members — it’s time for healthcare interoperability to become a reality.
Please reach out any time by email and let’s discuss how to make data exchange between providers much easier!
Thanks,
Peter