The march toward interoperability seems as murky as ever.
What is apparent, according to a newly released report from Orem, Utah-based research firm KLAS Enterprises, is that providers say they want to share patient data and that competing interests still need to agree on standards.
KLAS thinks it may have an answer for the second part. The company said Monday that a group of 12 vendors of electronic health records recently agreed on a framework to get to interoperability — or is it more lip service?
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This is what the vendors collectively said:
On October 2, 2015, a broad group of EHR stakeholders, including vendor CEOs and provider CIOs, agreed by consensus to objective measures of interoperability and ongoing reporting. Leaders of 12 different EHR vendor companies proactively stepped forward to have an independent entity publish transparent measures of health information exchange that can serve as the basis for understanding our current position and trajectory. Assisted by leading provider organizations and informatics experts, these executive officers knocked down barriers to arrive at measures to improve interoperability for the public good. Vendors and providers willingly committed to go arm in arm to work closely with Washington to help alleviate the interoperability-measurement burden faced by the government.
That’s not exactly crystal-clear, is it?
The report, based on interviews with more than 200 healthcare professionals, found — surprise — that private networks are the “closest match today” to true interoperability. About 80 percent of the private vendor health information exchanges have an Epic Systems EHR and are on the vendor’s Care Everywhere network.
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While 44 percent of non-Epic users said that the Verona, Wisconsin-based vendor’s product is poor for interoperability, they also listed Epic as the third-easiest to connect to, after athenahealth and Cerner.
Need more proof that perception doesn’t always meet reality? A whopping 98 percent of providers said they were willing to share data and 55 percent considered themselves “proactive and willing.” Yet, just 28 percent said that their main competitors were being proactive when it came to data sharing, though only 18 percent considered their competitors unwilling to share.
Not surprisingly, data sharing seems to be most difficult among small physician practices. Again, though, there are contradictions in survey findings.
Providers generally rated ambulatory EHR vendors low when it comes to interoperability. “eClinicalWorks is highlighted as one of the most challenging vendors to connect to, yet participants report more point-to-point connections with eClinicalWorks than with any other vendor,” KLAS said.
“Interoperability is like moving a piano. It is a team effort, but when the piano tumbles down the stairs, puts a hole in the wall, or lands on a foot, it is always someone else’s fault,” according to the report.