Interoperability is surely a healthcare buzzword. But progress toward make it a reality has been slow.
A new report from KLAS digs deeper into the industry’s road to success in the realm of interoperability. It includes responses from 420 healthcare organizations about the prosperity of their providers and the performance of their vendors related to interoperability.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
As part of the survey, KLAS asked participants about their “deep interoperability.” An organization was considered to have reached such a level if it indicated one of two ideal responses in all four interoperability stages. As KLAS defined it:
The deep interoperability rate refers to the percent of interviewed organizations within each vendor’s customer base that (1) often or nearly always have access to needed data through any interoperable means, (2) are able to easily locate specific patient records or have them automatically presented to clinicians, (3) have the retrieved patient data fully integrated into the EMR’s native data fields or in a separate tab or section within the EMR, and (4) believe retrieved patient data often or nearly always benefit patient care to the extent that it should.
The survey unveiled only 14 percent of participating organizations reported deep interoperability when sharing data with disparate EHR systems. This amount is up from last year, when only 6 percent of organizations said the same.
The most successful vendor here appears to be athenahealth. Twenty-three percent of its customer base reported deep interoperability when sharing information with different EHRs. GE Healthcare was next in line, with 22 percent of its clients reporting this level of interoperability when sharing data with other vendors.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
When it comes to sharing information with organizations using the same EHR, 26 percent of organizations reported deep interoperability, up from 24 percent last year.
In this category, Epic seems to be the most advanced. Fifty-one percent of its customer base had achieved deep interoperability when sharing with other Epic users. The second most advanced vendor was athenahealth, with 34 percent of its customers saying the same.
Yet having more access to external data doesn’t necessarily make life easier. Customers of athenahealth, GE Healthcare and Epic were less likely to feel additional patient data is beneficial than they were last year, according to the report.
Still, initiatives like Carequality and CommonWell are catching on. Of the 71 Epic customers surveyed, 28 said they’re currently using Carequality. Meanwhile, athenahealth and Cerner are the primary users of CommonWell. Thirteen of the 42 athenahealth clients and 13 of the 55 Cerner clients are active CommonWell participants.
Photo: coffeekai, Getty Images
