Since the passage of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), the healthcare sector has had a very clear directive on digitalisation and securing trusted channels to exchange healthcare data between different parties.
Health Gorilla’s recent State of Interoperability report is the most downloaded piece of content in their history, which reveals that more than half (55%) of healthcare professionals are supportive of broadening inclusivity to personal health information and plan to spend 5-20% more on achieving interoperable health systems in 2023.
The report overall surveyed 130 senior healthcare professionals in leadership positions.
Interoperability in this context refers to improving integrated healthcare providers systems that enable access to and exchange of health data to all relevant parties, patients and medical professionals.
Despite plans to inject more investment into interoperability and data-sharing, the survey also revealed that 75% of participants felt that data privacy and security were primary concerns of healthcare exchange systems.
Among the findings, only 40% of health system leaders believe that shared heath data is “good or great” quality, with 60% reporting duplicates or gaps in data.
The government is a driving force in reducing waiting times for patients to retrieve their health information securely from the healthcare system. Another problem with the current data-sharing model in healthcare is the lack of data being utilised and shared between Electronic health record systems.
A regulation as part of the 21st Century Cures Act prevents the withholding of information to providers and patients and in October 2022 this law was revised to apply to all health data.
Jitin Asnaani, Health Gorilla Board Member and former Executive Director of CommonWell Health Alliance said:
“Thanks to market adoption of national and regional data exchanges and the continued thrust of government initiatives – such as TEFCA, FHIR APIs, Information Blocking, Promoting Interoperability, and other recent CMS rules – the basis on which healthcare participants will make decisions is evolving. The State of Interoperability report highlights the magnitude of this change, and showcases the progress made by public-private collaboration”.
Download the 2023 State of Interoperability Report: https://healthgorilla.com/home/stateofinterop2023
