Three health tech and economy experts said the coronavirus pandemic will force EHR vendors to work with one another and deploy the FHIR APIs.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) interoperability rule was finalized in early March, right before the massive spread of the coronavirus pandemic. However, the spread of that virus has put the importance of EHR interoperability under a microscope, health technology experts wrote in a recent post for the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy.
On March 17, the Trump Administration announced the expansion of telehealth solutions in an attempt to lessen the impact of COVID-19, also loosening restrictions on health data exchange across providers.
But, the lack of interoperability between separate EHR vendors makes it difficult to exchange important patient data. If providers cannot access patient data immediately, there could be deadly consequences.
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
While the ONC final rule takes a hard stance on information blocking, it also calls on medical providers and device developers to promote patient data access using third-party apps and application programming interfaces (APIs).
Ultimately, ONC adopted Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Release 4 for its foundational FHIR standard.
“If electronic health records had the well-defined interfaces necessary for intercompatibility — such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources application programming interfaces — it would be easier to connect and create an ecosystem of third-party service providers,” wrote co-authors Geoffrey Parker, professor at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, Edward Anderson, professor at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, and Nora Belcher, executive director of the Texas e-Health Alliance.
“With better compatibility, telehealth and other healthcare organizations would not need to provide services for which they do not have the resources. Instead, they could use EHR intercompatibility to leverage the platform ecosystem, such as Cerner recently connected Uber’s non-emergency medical transportation service.”
If EHRs were interoperable, then providers would not be running into patient data exchange issues, especially now that the providers are under extreme duress during the pandemic. The writers expressed the need for the third-party platforms that could relieve stress for providers at this time.
However, with EHR vendors, such as Epic, not initially on board with the ONC interoperability rule, it shows how difficult it will be to achieve nationwide interoperability.
“It’s important and interesting to consider the reactions of the various players in the health care IT industry,” they wrote. “Why have some electronic health record giants been fighting the implementation of the 21st Century Cures Act with such surprising vigor? The crux of their argument is the valid concern that poorly conceived applications could leak data a la Cambridge Analytica.”
“However, the concern is also self-serving because these EHR providers’ ecosystems of platform applications are weaker than their competitors’ and blocking implementation impedes their competition,” they continued. “Other EHR players — as well as Microsoft and Apple — have given the rules strong support, as have health insurers and providers.”
If providers and vendors can successfully deploy the main components of the final rule, then the writers believe patient data exchange could be a possibility.
“The coronavirus pandemic underscores the potentially deadly implications of the lack of intercompatibility of electronic health records and the need for the tremendous innovation and agility of open platforms,” the group concluded. “In the long term, such innovation will also help the nation cope with the issues of cost.”
“However, for this vision of innovation and data exchange to be realized, governing bodies (including the federal government itself) must require that all electronic health records, no matter their brand, work with one another, and, specifically, that tools like Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources APIs be deployed across the industry.”
But, the lack of interoperability between separate EHR vendors makes it difficult to exchange important patient data. If providers cannot access patient data immediately, there could be deadly consequences.
While the ONC final rule takes a hard stance on information blocking, it also calls on medical providers and device developers to promote patient data access using third-party apps and application programming interfaces (APIs).
Ultimately, ONC adopted Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Release 4 for its foundational FHIR standard.
“If electronic health records had the well-defined interfaces necessary for intercompatibility — such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources application programming interfaces — it would be easier to connect and create an ecosystem of third-party service providers,” wrote co-authors Geoffrey Parker, professor at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, Edward Anderson, professor at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, and Nora Belcher, executive director of the Texas e-Health Alliance.
“With better compatibility, telehealth and other healthcare organizations would not need to provide services for which they do not have the resources. Instead, they could use EHR intercompatibility to leverage the platform ecosystem, such as Cerner recently connected Uber’s non-emergency medical transportation service.”
If EHRs were interoperable, then providers would not be running into patient data exchange issues, especially now that the providers are under extreme duress during the pandemic. The writers expressed the need for the third-party platforms that could relieve stress for providers at this time.
However, with EHR vendors, such as Epic, not initially on board with the ONC interoperability rule, it shows how difficult it will be to achieve nationwide interoperability.
“It’s important and interesting to consider the reactions of the various players in the health care IT industry,” they wrote. “Why have some electronic health record giants been fighting the implementation of the 21st Century Cures Act with such surprising vigor? The crux of their argument is the valid concern that poorly conceived applications could leak data a la Cambridge Analytica.”
“However, the concern is also self-serving because these EHR providers’ ecosystems of platform applications are weaker than their competitors’ and blocking implementation impedes their competition,” they continued. “Other EHR players — as well as Microsoft and Apple — have given the rules strong support, as have health insurers and providers.”
If providers and vendors can successfully deploy the main components of the final rule, then the writers believe patient data exchange could be a possibility.
“The coronavirus pandemic underscores the potentially deadly implications of the lack of intercompatibility of electronic health records and the need for the tremendous innovation and agility of open platforms,” the group concluded. “In the long term, such innovation will also help the nation cope with the issues of cost.”
“However, for this vision of innovation and data exchange to be realized, governing bodies (including the federal government itself) must require that all electronic health records, no matter their brand, work with one another, and, specifically, that tools like Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources APIs be deployed across the industry.”
Source: EHR Intelligence