TAMPA, Fla., Aug. 5, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Five hundred
and nine managers of frontline providers confirm the lack
of general interoperability across the entire U.S. health care
system has detracted from COVID-19 patient care, led to poor health
outcomes and higher expenditures, and left population health data
muddy and deficient.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in
April it would delay the enforcement of its Interoperability and
Patient Access Final Rules until 2021, allowing health
organizations and practices a few more months to install an
infrastructure that supports true interoperability to ensure the
effective transmission and exchange of patient data.
Ninety percent of health system leaders surveyed confirmed that
the delay removed any incentive for their organizations to
prioritize true interoperability through the coming year, despite
the benefits it would provide dealing with the pandemic.
"Portability of data in the middle of this pandemic is vital,"
said Doug Brown, President of the
survey organization Black Book Research. "But resolving systemic
data blocking and platforms interfering with the exchange of
patient data are not on the industry's front burner."
"The enforcement of interoperability standards put forth by HHS,
because of the COVID-19 crisis, has greatly slowed," said Brown.
"But vendors have continued to introduce and roll out a wide
variety of possibilities to support providers and health care
systems in meeting the requirements."
Ninety-three percent of survey participants report that complete
patient health pictures have not been reaching the downstream
COVID-19 clinicians upon admission.
According to 79% of respondents, manual processes are failing to
gather and submit COVID-19 information with public health agencies
consistently.
In a separate Black Book survey of 2,517 health care consumers
across all 50 states. 324 COVID-19-diagnosed patients reported they
were treated in new care environments in 2020, yet not one consumer
stated their full patient record was available to their COVID
treatment provider electronically.
Twenty-two percent of surveyed health care consumers stated they
had difficulty or were unable to access their normal providers
to obtain records electronically, via fax or in person in 2020.
Closed clinics and practices hampered ability to fax or retrieve
records according to 11% of consumers polled.
"Interoperability will obviously affect and enable consumer
behavior in the years ahead as a result of the lack of data sharing
and troubles with data blocking during this pandemic," said
Brown.
Ninety-three percent of consumers polled in July 2020 expressed their disappointment in the
lack of data sharing during COVID 19 across separate vendor
systems. 55% placed blame on their provider. 31% placed blame
on the EHR their provider chose to utilize.
Sixty-seven percent of consumers revealed they will consider
changing their physician and hospital providers in the coming year
after learning how their health record was not shareable or
available or was blocked in the past year.
"The greatest constraint of the health care industry is not the
capabilities of technology to share data seamlessly, but rather the
intricate and complex conundrum of data and system integration, big
data, multiple information exchanges, and federal regulations,"
said Brown.
The market comprises a wide array of interoperability segments
that cumulatively support information sharing including application
programming interface integration, app integration, data
cleansing, data integration, EMPI, data analytics, and
connectivity.
"Recognizing the electronic health records and revenue cycle
management IT market places are highly fragmented, it will be
critical for developers to identify best practices across disparate
platforms to ensure the consistency of adoption to meet the
expectations of health care consumers," said Brown. "The regulatory
drive to command greater interoperability is also advancing new
opportunities in health care technology including privacy and data
security."
About Black Book
Black Book Market Research LLC, its founder, management and
staff do not own or hold any financial interest in any of the
coding solutions vendors covered and encompassed in the surveys it
conducts. Black Book reports the results of the collected
satisfaction and client experience rankings in publication and to
media before firm notification of rating results and does not
solicit survey participation fees, review fees, inclusion or
briefing charges, or involve consultant firm collaboration with
Black Book before the announcement of the polling outcomes.
Black Book rankings are based on client experience scores
obtained from the 660,000 crowdsourced ballots cast and
available through mobile apps, web surveys, remote polling
instruments, interview calls, and on-site trade shows and user
groups throughout the year. They represent the opinions of health
care professionals and clinicians from more than 4,600 hospitals,
600 IDNs, 2,800 clinics, 23,000 physician practices, 250
health plans, and nearly 505,000 health care industry consumers,
and account for 6,000 products and services from more than 1,700
vendors.
For Black Book vendor satisfaction rating methodology, auditing,
resources, comprehensive research, and ranking data,
see www.blackbookmarketresearch.com or contact
Research@BlackBookMarketResearch.com.
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SOURCE Black Book Research