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Provider Misconceptions about Health Information Exchange (HIE) Busted!

 

Health Information Exchange (HIE) is not always understood in our ever changing healthcare landscape.

 

Myth #1 busts a misconception about HIE advancement and consolidation.

 

Interoperability is delivered best in markets that are dominated by one large electronic health record (EHR) System.

 

 

 

While one or two EHR’s may dominate certain markets, in the age of value-based healthcare, patients seek care through a variety of healthcare organizations and locations creating data silos. HIEs can consume, digest and disseminate information from multiple sources and present that information to the hospital, provider and care team in a format they can understand. This means that HIEs provide a normalized, longitudinal clinical record for each patients, incorporating information from all care settings with multiple EHR systems.

 

Myth #2 busts a thought that all patients only see providers within one healthcare organization.

 

Patients in my area only see providers that are associated with our healthcare organization. This is because we provide emergency care, primary care and specialty care.

 

 

 

American patients have seen an average of 18.7 different doctors during their lives, according to a survey conducted by GfK OmniWeb Roper. For patients over 65 years of age, the average increases to 28.4 individual doctors, including primary care, specialists, hospital and urgent care providers.

 

 

 

Myth #3 In an HIE, just sharing data is sufficient. 

 

Many HIEs only share a longitudinal view of a patient data from multiple organizations across the care continuum.

 

 

 

An HIE can alert hospitals and physicians to a patient’s admission, readmission or discharge from an acute care facility, informing the provider’s workflow and helping him/her to better respond to care transitions. This allows a provider to offer timely follow-up care to ensure better care of the patient. Similarly, as value-based care drives requirements for analytics and quality reporting, HIEs can take in data, perform key analytics and deliver reports that help providers increase their quality scores.