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Achieving Patient-Centered Interoperability: Getting the Data You Need, When and Where You Need It

October 13, 2020

Article

eHealth Company

eHealth Technologies Blog: Michelle Donowsky, RT(T), Executive Director of Clinical Optimization, eHealth Technologies

As health information professionals and leaders gather at the AHIMA20 Virtual Conference to share best practices and talk about the future of health data, there’s sure to be plenty of discussion around the topic of interoperability.

That familiar industry buzzword describes the perfect HIM world we all envision – where medical histories, images, test results and other vital data move effortlessly from doctor to specialist; from the lab to the surgical room; from one health system’s hospital to another.

At eHealth Technologies, we are always striving to reach that ideal. But through many conversations with customers about their biggest HIM pain points, one thing is clear:  Interoperability for the sake of checking the box does not truly impact patient care.

Access to information electronically at the point of care – patient-centered interoperability – is the ultimate goal.

eHealth Technologies is working hard to play a vital role in closing the gap on interoperability and delivering data when and where clinicians need it. Here are three common HIM pain points and the solutions our teams developed to address them.

Pain Point #1:

“All too often, incoming PHI files are disorganized and key data is buried in arbitrary locations. Is there a way to deliver records that allow our clinicians to search and find the patient information they need, quickly and easily?”  

We feel your pain! eHealth Technologies has created a solution to alleviate this “find-a-needle-in-the-haystack” scenario: eHealth Connect Intelligent Clinical Record Service

When we retrieve and organize transmitted records, eHealth Technologies’ Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology  applies a text layer to the image. This proprietary process allows for broader data mining and gives clinicians access to the data they need, right at the point of care. They can quickly and easily search for key words, medical conditions, and other pertinent patient information.

Bottom line, OCR positively impacts patient care. Not only does it expedite providers’ ability to create and deliver patient care plans; it avoids treatment delays that can happen when vital information cannot be located, forcing cancellation of a test or procedure.

 Pain Point #2:

“How can we maximize the privacy and security of our PHI and minimize the risk of security breaches?”

Future trends in privacy and security will be hot topic at AHIMA20 – and for good reason.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights breach portal recorded more HIPAA breaches last year than any other year in history – up 196% from 2018. HIPAA violations are expensive, too. Penalties for noncompliance range from $100 – $50,000 per violation, with a maximum penalty of $1.5 million per year.

How are you protecting your patients’ PHI? Is your HIM department at risk for a HIPAA breach under your current record retrieval and input process?

If your department is receiving outside records via traditional fax machine, incoming PHI could end up in the wrong hands. Paper records require extra manual steps, increasing the risk of documents being lost, shuffled with other patients’ records, or filed in the wrong electronic chart.

eHealth Technologies’ direct delivery of records ensures secure record management. Everything is electronically integrated into the EMR. All reports go through a triple-step Quality Assurance process to ensure the accuracy of patient identification.

Our proprietary processes and secure delivery methods provide a heightened level of protection and safety. Patient privacy is protected, mitigating the risk of data breaches and HIPAA violations.

Pain Point #3:

 “Is there any way to streamline the way we deliver physician-requested records? We always end up with so many non-requested records scattered throughout the document.”

We’ve got a solution – one that’s sure to make you a hero in the eyes of your clinicians!

In response to customer feedback, we created a new process by which records are separated into Requested and Non-Requested categories. This enables easy transfer of ONLY the requested records into the EMR.

To make this even more user-friendly, you may opt to receive your records in a single Indexed PDF document that includes both categories OR in two individual documents labeled “Requested Records” and “Non-Requested Records.”

This convenient method of dual document delivery gives clinicians the option to view extraneous records while eliminating the time and hassle of poring through 100s of pages of unrelated records. Our customers are raving about this!

We would love to hear about your biggest pain points and see how we can solve them. Let’s connect at AHIMA20. Call 585-439-1027 or visit our AHIMA web portal to meet with our team during the conference.

Every patient deserves faster access to care

Interested in seeing how our health-tech solutions can benefit your healthcare system? Request a demo today and one of our experts will be in touch to show you our technology in action.