Interoperability

A staggering 73 percent of health information management professionals work on mitigating duplicates at least weekly at their organizations, according to a recent AHIMA survey. The survey confirmed the importance of information governance policies within an organization to address accurate matching patient information needs. The results also indicated the importance of quality assurance initiatives to improve care quality. “Accurately matching the right information with the right patient is crucial to reducing potential patient safety risks,” said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, in a statement. “At the very foundation of patient care is the ability to accurately match a patient with his or her health information.” AHIMA surveyed 815 members using 12 different EHRs and assessed their experience with patient matching and linking patient records. Less than half of respondents said there's a quality assurance step during the registration or post-registration process. There's also a lack of resources to adequately correct duplicate records. [Also: AHIMA takes on patient identifier] Forty-three percent of respondents said they measure data quality in relationship to patient matching, while less than half have a quality assurance step in the registration or post-registration process. Although  55 percent of respondents had communication policies for duplicate patient records, there is  a lack of standardization in regards to how the rate of duplicates are calculated. And less than half of respondents understood how duplicate rates were factored in their organization. “Reliable and accurate calculation of the duplicate rate is foundational to developing trusted data, reducing potential patient safety risks and measuring return on investments for strategic healthcare initiatives,” the survey authors said. Fifty-seven percent of respondents work possible duplicates regularly, while most respondents said data integrity issues require consistent management and timely cleanup. Patient matching initiatives are crucial for the success of patient-centric care, health information exchange, population health, analytics and financial goals, the report said. Respondents reported five major daily challenges with master patient index or enterprise master patient index management: registration staff turnover; record matching/patient search terminology and or algorithms; a lack of resources to fix duplicates; and inadequate governance, policy or support. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] “We cannot sit around and wait for others to correct this problem,” the survey authors said. “Improving patient matching efforts is a challenge we can meet,” Gordon said. “The healthcare community must come together to embrace it so that accurate patient information is available when and where it is needed.” The authors said the survey was a critical step in future patient matching planning and collaboration with healthcare experts to develop solutions. AHIMA plans to use data from the survey to shape future advocacy efforts. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

With 900 care locations and a 1,200-member IT team, Carolinas HealthCare System is sprawling and complex. That’s just how Chief Information Officer Craig Richardville likes it. Complexity creates excitement, Richardville, who was recently named the 2015 CHIME-HIMSS John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year, tells Healthcare IT News. “It’s just so dynamic that it creates the energy.” CHIME and HIMSS give the CIO of the Year Award jointly each year. The groups selected Richardville for the 2015 honor, they said, for “pursuing an aggressive and effective approach to employing technology to help provide better care.” Q: What do you view as your primary mission as CIO? A: To best serve our patients by engaging the optimal use and investment of technology and information for our patients and providers to improve their health and enhance care. Q: What is your proudest achievement? A: First and foremost, my family – watching my three sons grow and develop into fine young men and assets to our community. Professionally, the team – the complete CHS Team coming together to address and develop new and exciting ways of improving our services and connecting to our patients. Q: What has been the biggest challenge you¹ve had to face as CIO? A: Change management – ensuring that we lead the transformation of healthcare delivery. Q: How has your work changed over the years, and what factor has most contributed to the change? A: The biggest change is the addition from an executor of a plan, in with the development of the strategy. There are many ideas in and outside of healthcare that are applicable for us to evaluate and appropriately implement, so being part of the discussion over the last several years has allowed an opening of all minds, mine-included, to what the future possibilities are. Q: How has meaningful use changed the way you work? A: Meaningful use accelerated our plan and provided a discount to automate the clinical record and processes and to build a foundational platform for many other key initiatives to be built upon it, such as interoperability, patient engagement, mobility, virtual care, care management, etc. In that way it was beneficial, but the requirements and timeline and maturity of the service offerings has led to some of the frustration. To ensure we communicate our success and future progress, MU needs to be clearly identified as service and outcome-oriented for ensuring our work clearly puts the patient first. Q: Looking ahead, what challenges do you see coming in health IT? A: Interoperability. True interoperability based upon secure standards is absolutely necessary if we are to achieve the vision all of us share regarding making sure patients have access to their health information, and it’s easily accessible to their providers. Unlocking the data in our systems to share with providers and patients is crucial to creating a seamless health information system. It requires that we agree upon standards and safe transport protocols. It’s absolutely vital though that in order to serve our patients, we provide them and their providers with the health data they need to lead full lives. Also, patient engagement. Providing solutions that are easy, accessible and integrated into people’s lives is a challenge. Healthcare is good at building and deploying very feature-rich and complex software systems. What’s harder though is to deliver that sophistication into solutions that are consumer-grade, easy to use and accessible to consumers. It should be as easy as hailing a car on Uber, ordering a pair of shoes from Zappos, downloading a movie from Amazon or making a dinner reservation on Open Table. These solutions have to be integrated into the lives of people in a way that is not obtrusive but still help them manage and improve their health status. Q: What challenges are unique to Carolinas HealthCare? A: Carolinas HealthCare System has a level of complexity that may be similar to some but different from others. We are a multi-state health system with a large portfolio of combined assets, but also, in various markets, we have regional relationships that are a mixture of managed services, leased services and shared services. This complexity has allowed us to be very similar to other communities in that we have in some cases, like EMR for example, where we have been able to build core competencies around the higher layer services, such as health information exchange, patient engagement, data warehouse and analytics that contain a multi-faceted number of systems, products and solutions as opposed to a single platform like many others. Q: What new technology developments on the horizon have you enthusiastic? A: Mobility – placing the patient to be accountable for their health and wellness by providing the apps and connectivity for them to do so. Virtual care and it’s continued quick advancement and acceptance as a delivery model holding us accountable to the existing standards, yet improving access and lowering cost. Interoperability. FHIR appears to be very promising and we’re looking at ways here at Carolinas HealthCare System to use it to better build and deploy solutions for our patients and providers. Q: Where will health IT be five or 10 years from now? A: I would expect that we will be leading many other industries and that those in financial services, retail, etc., will look at healthcare IT for advancing their companies and industries, similar to how we are modeling some of our services offerings in comparison to them. There is a tremendous amount of talent within healthcare. We have arguably evolved quicker in this transformation that any other industry. With the management of the tight budgets that we hold ourselves to, we will inevitably be the one to lead the industry pack as we continue to help the business develop and deploy solutions that make it easier for patients and clinicians at a competitive price point. One of the things we’ve learned over the last 20 years, particularly here at Carolinas HealthCare System, is we’ve gotten very good at deploying solutions that are on time, on budget and deliver great value. Our teammates have great insight into how things work. We listen to and continue to better understand our patients, and how we can best optimize solutions and deliver value. I am very fortunate to be with a health system with a visionary board, and feel blessed to be part a group of colleagues that thrive upon teamwork and successful execution of our plans. Healthcare IT is not only playing the support role that we always have, but also leading and being a key component of many of our strategic initiatives. Twitter: @HealthITNews

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