Donald Rucker, MD (National Coordinator for Health Information Technology) and Talisha Searcy (ONC Director of Research and Evaluation) recently published a blog post about improvements being made in healthcare interoperability that contained some striking figures. Not only have 93 percent of non-federal acute care hospitals upgraded or planned to upgrade to the 2015 Edition Health IT Certification Criteria, they’re also making big strides in terms of being able to send and receive information.
88 percent of hospitals now have the ability to send summary of care records and 74 percent have the ability to receive them. Hospitals involved in all four aspects of interoperability, (sending, receiving, finding, integrating) have also increased 41 percent since 2016. This continuous improvement makes a big difference in the lives of citizens and allows for better care while also bringing efficiencies to healthcare systems.
As a result of the 21st Century Cures Act, these numbers will only increase, as the Department of Health and Human Services and ONC are mandated to improve health information interoperability. A few of the initiatives already moving forward from this Act include open APIs, reduced information blocking, and a trusted exchange framework. These relatively large undertakings will allow for commonalities across organizations to make information sharing easier.
It will certainly take effort from both the public and private sector to achieve full interoperability, but it is a worthwhile cause. The recent figures are a positive sign toward solving this problem sooner rather than later.
At Extract we know how important your information is, which is why we’ve developed a software that can take your incoming faxes and scanned documents and automatically put the data you want into your EHR. Increased access to information is a boon for everyone and we’re glad to play a role in that. If you’d like to learn more about how our software fits into the puzzle, please reach out today.
About the Author: Chris Mack
Chris is a Marketing Manager at Extract with experience in product development, data analysis, and both traditional and digital marketing. Chris received his bachelor’s degree in English from Bucknell University and has an MBA from the University of Notre Dame. A passionate marketer, Chris strives to make complex ideas more accessible to those around him in a compelling way.