Interoperability Could Save $30 Billion Nationally
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Interoperability is key to huge savings for healthcare industry, White Paper says
A white paper released by the Gary and Mary West Health Institute, a San Diego-based mobile health technology advocacy organization, and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health information Technology asserts greater interoperability of mobile medical devices, allowing them to better communicate with each other, could save the nation more than $30 billion a year in wasteful healthcare spending. According to the authors, “Waste reduction through greater medical device interoperability would lead to increased efficiency, improved quality, and more affordable care.
“Commonly adopted standards can accelerate the move toward greater medical device interoperability and potentially reduce the cost of achieving interoperability. With all of the caveats associated with estimating the value of a process improvement not yet deployed, our combined top-down and bottom-up modeling suggests that annual savings in excess of $30 billion may be liberated by widespread adoption of functional interoperability for medical devices.”
Although promoting interoperability between health information technology systems and patient-centered healthcare has been a priority for over a decade, mobile health is a relative newcomer to the health IT stage – albeit a fast growing one – adding a new layer to interoperability.
As Modern Healthcare explains, the federally supported Blue Button initiative to spawn a platform for patients to copy and upload their medical data is gaining ground in the private sector. Meanwhile, a private initiative called Fast Healthcare interoperability Resources debuted in February at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems society convention in Orlando. Their goal is to provide connection points between mainstream e-Health records and outside app developers to encourage interoperability and create applications for EHR platforms.
However, the authors of the report caution that serious work remains to bring the newly developed and existing mobile interoperability channels into the mainstream. “To realize the benefits, providers, payers, medical device manufacturers and the government will need to collaborate and partner to promote the development and adoption of seamlessly interoperable devices.
“Industry trends are already driving providers and payers to converge and share risk through care coordination, clinical integration and improved population health management,” they said. “Stakeholder collaboration is expected to provide a strong platform for accelerating adoption of medical device interoperability and realizing its associated benefits.”
The current head of ONC, Dr. Karen DeSalvo, has announced her intention to press for patient-centered technologies, saying, “ONC envisions an information-rich, consumer-centered healthcare system that allows a patient's health information to follow them wherever they get their care. We are working with patients, providers and others across healthcare and health IT to securely and safely free health information that will help to improve patient care and health, at lower costs.”