Echoing previous surveys, eHealth Initiative's latest poll of health data exchange organizations finds them struggling with interoperability issues.
Cost and technical challenges are the key barriers to interoperability, respondents said. The three most-cited issues were the cost of building interfaces to connect disparate systems, getting consistent and timely response from EHR vendor interface developers and technical difficulty of building interfaces.
Overall, 135 organizations responded, including 74 community-based health information organizations, 25 statewide efforts and 26 healthcare delivery organizations.
In all, 112 organizations have had to construct multiple interfaces, and 18 reported having to construct more than 25 interfaces.
During a webinar panel of HIE executives responding to the survey, Kevin Stambaugh, director of Physician e-Services of Intermountain Healthcare in Utah, talked about the difficulty when it deals with a different vendor representative at each interaction.
"It is like we are starting from scratch every time," he said. Stambaugh said vendors might have task list queues five or six months out and Intermountain has been frustrated about its inability to press for quicker response.
While 101 respondents use secure messaging in their data exchange models, Christina Galanis, executive director of Southern Tier HealthLink, a regional health information organization in Binghamton, New York, said increasing reliance on Direct seems to be by providers just looking to check off a box for Meaningful Use, rather than adopting more advanced uses of data-sharing.
In all, 106 respondents reported that their organization has reached stage 5 (operating) or higher on eHealth Initiative's HIE maturity scale, an increase of 11 percent since 2013. Sixty-four support an accountable care organization, 52 support a patient-centered medical home, 21 support a State Innovation Model and 12 support a bundled payment initiative.
Respondents report data exchange is reaching a point of stability and acceptance, and that organizations are settling on a set of core services and a standard approach to sustainability, most looking to dues and fees to support continued operations.
Previous eHealth Initiative surveys found ACOs have made little progress in moving beyond rudimentary technology in the past year and that interoperability remains a huge barrier.
The JASON Task Force last week recommended that Meaningful Use Stage 3 requirements be narrowed to more closely focus on interoperability.
To learn more:
- check out the survey results