News Feature | October 7, 2013

HIE Challenges To Sharing Patient Information

Source: Health IT Outcomes
Greg Bengel

By Greg Bengel, contributing writer

Study reveals while participation in HIEs is high, organizations still rely on paper and fax and as a result struggle with sharing information in meaningful ways

According to a new HIMSS Analytics report sponsored by ASG, participation in health information exchange organizations is high with more than 70 percent of respondents reporting that they are part of an HIO. However, the report also reveals organizations continue to rely on paper records and faxes.

Healthcare IT News covers the report, which looks at opportunities to improve patient data collections and exchange among HIEs. The survey respondents consist of 157 senior hospital information technology executives. Healthcare IT News pulls out the key findings of the report as follows:

  • “64 percent of the HIOs reported that sharing data with hospitals not participating in an HIO was conducted via fax
  • 63 percent of the same HIOs processed faxed information into an electronic format via scanning
  • 84 percent of respondents directly integrated their output/print environment with their EMR/HIS system
  • 42 percent of respondents characterized their output/print environment as ‘high effort’”

The article quotes Jennifer Horowitz, senior director of research for HIMSS Analytics. “Based on high participation numbers, hospitals clearly understand the value of electronic sharing of health-related information among organizations and the important role it can play in improving the speed, quality, safety, and cost of patient care,” she says. “But meaningful engagement between healthcare organizations and easy ways to share patient information, both in paper and electronic formats, still remain a challenge.” Survey respondents indicated that facilities participating in an HIE have difficulty exchanging patient information in meaningful ways, and that sharing information outside of HIOs is hampered both by budget limitations and staffing resources.

EHR Intelligence quotes the study, which says, “For the foreseeable future, information exchange among healthcare providers will continue to include information that is documented and stored on paper. As such, organizations need to have sound strategies in place for exchanging paper-based records. For most respondents in this study, this involves converting the paper record into an electronic form; one that can be uploaded into the EMR environment. Note that only 15 percent of respondents in this study reported that faxing was their sole strategy of exchanging patient information.”

One solution to this problem? There are companies that specialize in Enterprise Information Management (EIM) - like OpenText - which is the practice of maximizing the value of information while minimizing its risks. Partnering with such a company allows an HIE to get the most out of on their large amount of information and data.