Data is everywhere in healthcare. It’s in systems like an EHR, LIS, or DMS, it’s transmitted through health information exchanges, and sometimes it’s even stuck in an image in a patient’s chart. Over the years, the goal has been to unlock this data so it’s in a discrete format and can be used for diagnosis, treatment, and trending purposes. One of the driving forces in promoting the exchange of this data has been interoperability, which is really just a fancy way of saying that the information is in a common format that can be exchanged by computers.
Just being able to exchange data is certainly a necessary first step, but it won’t take healthcare organizations very far if the data isn’t usable. The Sequoia Project, a public/private collaborative of health information stakeholders, has been a longtime promoter of interoperability, and is hoping to increase effectiveness with a new initiative for supporting their guidance on data usability.
This project, known as the Taking Root Movement, is co-sponsored by industry trade group AHIMA and aims to help with the support and implementation of interoperability, working on materials like a Data Usability Implementation Guide.
The usability guide was developed by a workgroup representing nearly 400 organizations, addressing common issues that end users are seeing that can be solved using established and familiar standards like HL7 and IHE. The use of other familiar standards, like those in coding, also make records more usable. Accurate coding can remove the need to refer to a document and transcribe data, which was just one of the issues explored in a TechTarget article on the subject. Worse than resorting to transcription, improperly coded data can lead to the assumption the data doesn’t exist, resulting in duplicate testing.
Still other errors from manual input can occur when standards aren’t adhered to. There are pervasive errors like copying and pasting duplicate information, but also occasional errors of omission, where a missing date on a prescription can lead to confusion regarding a course of treatment or potential harmful interactions.
This isn’t a problem that magically appeared during the quest for interoperability but is one that hospitals have even delt with internally. With that in mind, getting more shareable and usable data will be an iterative process rather than an exact finish line to be reached. The Sequoia Project has invited any healthcare organizations that are interested to join the Taking Root Movement, contributing to the next version of the usability guide.
Another way to cut out transcription errors is to add automation technology to your document workflows. By using software like Extract’s HealthyData you can have your document classified, indexed, and matched to a patient/order/encounter with the key data identified, all before anyone has even laid eyes on it.
If this sounds like a way your organization could access more usable data, faster and with fewer errors, please reach out, and we’d be happy to give you a demonstration of the software.
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.