Diana Manos

Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council issued a new report saying infosec demands cross-sector collaboration.

As the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT comments period drew to a close, a number of organizations weighed in about how to improve electronic health records platforms.

Common usability challenges can also contribute to medical errors, the organization said.

As the EHR giant looks to trim its workforce with buyouts, a company spokesperson suggested that further cuts may be necessary.

Many of the site’s most in-demand jobs are emerging careers in healthcare, while others are long-standing positions.

The first employee of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is taking a new role in a different federal unit.

The organization is broadening into a single assessment tool for varying regulations around the world.

Sanofi, BNP Paribas and AXA are also among the groups calling for women innovators to develop tech tools that advance access to care.

More and more healthcare organizations are urging a broader swath of the industry to get involved driving interoperability. The latest is a Jan. 22 report from seven leading national hospital associations urging “all stakeholders” to take part. The report, titled, “Sharing Data, Saving Lives: The Hospital Agenda for Interoperability,” outlines some pathways to get the job done. Working with policymakers and other stakeholders, contributors of the report hold that this is what it will take to get interoperability finally where it needs to be in healthcare: data security, enhanced infrastructure, standards that work, connecting beyond EHRs and shared best practices. WHY IT MATTERS According to Chip Kahn, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, data is everything when it comes to quality care. Having the right information at the right time is critical for clinicians and patients alike.  THE BIGGER TREND Hospitals and health systems are making progress in sharing health information, with 93 percent of them offering the records to their patients online and 88 percent sharing records with ambulatory care providers outside their system. “They have worked to create the most interoperable systems possible given the tools available to them, but at great cost and effort,” the groups added. That said, the federal government is also making moves to bridge the gap in achieving interoperability. Last week, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT released its latest version of standards to promote successful interoperability with the Interoperability Standards Advisory Reference 2019. The reference manual is traditionally how ONC coordinates the identification, assessment, and public awareness of interoperability standards and implementation specifications, encouraging all stakeholders — clinical and research — to use them. ONC also encourages pilot testing of the standards. ON THE RECORD “We see interoperability in action all around us,” said AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack. “Mobile phones can call each other regardless of make, model, or operating system. The hospital field has made good headway, but it’s time to complete the job. We are united in calling for a truly interoperable system that allows all providers and patients to benefit from shared health records and data, leading to fully informed care decisions.” The report was written by America’s Essential Hospitals, the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the Children’s Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals and the National Association for Behavioral Healthcare, and it also names the benefits of fully interoperable data for patients and providers; lists the challenges to getting there and how interoperable records can improve outcomes. Diana Manos is a Washington, D.C.-area freelance writer specializing in healthcare, wellness and technology.  Twitter: @Diana_Manos Email the writer: dnewsprovider@gmail.com  Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.   

The whole point of electronic health records is to facilitate the sharing of patient data, but that is still difficult, not just because interoperability hasn't been fully achieved, but also because matching patient records is still not easy to achieve – putting patients at risk for incorrect care and also posing privacy concerns, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office. The report, titled, "Approaches and Challenges to Electronically Matching Patients' Records across Providers," says there two ways that records are failed to be matched accurately. These include: Records for different patients are mistakenly matched. When this happens, health, safety and privacy are in jeopardy. A provider may use a diagnosis or medication information for the wrong patient. Or, if the wrong patient's medical information is added to another patient's record, the first patient's privacy has been breached. Records for the same patient are not matched. When medical records for the same patient are not matched, providers don't have all the information they need to provide proper care. For the study, GAO interviewed representatives from physician practices and hospitals to find out how they match patient records. Some of them told GAO they have worked to improve the consistency with which they format demographic data in their electronic health records. Multiple stakeholders said no single effort would solve the challenge of patient record matching. Stakeholders suggested these general ways the healthcare community could improve how patient records are matched: implement common standards for recording demographic data; share best practices and other resources; and   develop a public-private collaboration to improve matching. When it comes to the role the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) should play, most interviewed for the survey weren't sure. However, some suggested that ONC could require demographic data standards for health IT certification, while others said the agency should push voluntary adoption of the standards. WHY IT MATTERS Healthcare providers are increasingly sharing patients' health records electronically. When a patient's records are shared with another provider, it is important to accurately match them to the correct patient. GAO and others have reported that accurately matching patient health records is a barrier to health information exchange. GAO cites a 2014 study found that as few as 50 percent of records are accurately matched when organizations exchange information. In the American Hospital Association's 2017 survey, 45 percent of large hospitals reported that difficulties in accurately identifying patients across health IT systems limited health information exchange. THE LARGER TREND GAO points out how important industry standards are for entering names and identifying data into an EHR, and recommends ONC's Interoperability Standards Advisory Reference as a way to ensure accurate matching. The latest version was just released Jan. 15, and was based on 74 comment letters, including nearly 400 individual recommendations for revisions. A standards-based health ecosystem is also critical, and this year's HIMSS Global Conference and Exhibition's Interoperability Showcase next month Orlando  will feature 82 organizations demonstrating 121 health IT systems across 16 different use-cases. The showcase is designed to get at the heart of what the true value of interoperability really is, said Christel Anderson, senior director, interoperability initiatives, at HIMSS. Diana Manos is a Washington, D.C.-area freelance writer specializing in healthcare, wellness and technology.  Twitter: @Diana_Manos Email the writer: dnewsprovider@gmail.com  Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.