EHR capability is only part of the answer to HITECH demands. Real-time access to accurate data is what makes meaningful healthcare information exchanges possible.
The twin goals of the Affordable Care Act – reducing costs and improving quality – have triggered sweeping changes to the way healthcare services are delivered, tracked and measured. In today’s environment, these changes would be impossible without strategic, integrated and flexible healthcare IT solutions. Healthcare IT, in turn, requires complete and accurate data to perform a broad range of functions. But acquiring, validating and updating critical data from multiple sources presents significant challenges without the tools to perform these processes efficiently.
While the transition from paper to electronic health records (EHR) and Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) aims to improve efficiency and support better patient outcomes, in some ways it has been both a blessing and a curse. From EHR systems to Physicians to Pharmacists, achieving clinical operability at the structural and semantic levels without accurate data is virtually impossible.
Eligible providers in the Meaningful Use program are facing increasingly rigorous demands to demonstrate advanced use of EHR. This includes the ability to transmit prescriptions and exchange patient information with other providers electronically. However, without accurate data on other providers and an efficient way to obtain it, providers will be unable to meet meaningful use requirements.
Pharmacists, who are in a position to support clinical interoperability and meaningful use measures, are struggling with issues of their own: It’s estimated that up to 51 million prescription errors occur every year. Many of these errors occur at the dispensing stage of controlled substances, when pharmacy personnel exit their internal systems to manually validate critical data, such as NPI and DEA credentials and sanction activity, through external databases. Real-time data integration can remedy these errors quickly and cost-effectively.
EHR capability by itself is only part of the answer for HITECH demands. Real-time access to accurate data that seamlessly integrates into existing CRM, expense reporting, accounting/ERP and other systems is what makes meaningful healthcare information exchanges possible.
