“Interoperability” is the buzzword when talking about information technology purchases. How can providers best reach this desired status with their systems?

To begin, interoperability is a fancy word for connectivity. “Desired status” depends on the underlying business goals a provider is looking to accomplish. 

Provider needs to define an interoperability strategy by answering three simple questions:

  • Who do we need to connect with?
  • What data do we need to share?
  • What are we going to do with the data, i.e., what are my goals for interoperability?

We're seeing clients with a variety of goals, including:  

1. Creating complete medical records to lower risk and boost compliance. 

  • Compliance with labs is a big issue
  • Ability to view lab orders and results as they are received ensures that lab results are reviewed and addressed quickly and efficiently  
  • Adverse drug reactions are a top cause of readmission to the hospital, and many errors can be prevented by connecting the right information at the right time between providers and pharmacies

Example:  Pharmacy system does a drug alert check when an order is received from the facility electronically or entered at the pharmacy. This is done before the order is filled.

2. Driving efficiencies and cost savings.

  • Era of painful cuts with potentially more to come
  • Duplicate data entry is evil and largely avoidable by connecting partners who need the same information
  • Sending discharges to the pharmacy as they happen can save time and reduce your pharmacy costs as you no longer receive meds for residents who have been discharged.

3. Smoothing care transitions.

  • Key to lowering risk of readmissions
  • Key to strengthening relationships with hospitals as they face the re-hospitalization penalty for “The Big Three” diagnoses (heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia)
  • Also important for providers who want to be a player in the ACO (accountable care organization) world

4. Boosting proactive care. 

  • Emerging world of Clinical Informatics (merging of IT and smart clinical practice)
  • These experts knit together data in disparate systems – to drive higher quality outcomes. They ask questions like “what mix of medications (my pharmacy system) contribute to more falls (my incident system)?"
  • No ‘one size fits all' approach to technology strategy, including the business drivers for connectivity
  • Providers are at very different stages of the technology adoption curve. In general, we hear there is an evolution from 1 to 4 as outlined above 
  • Folks who are largely paper-based start the journey by first focusing on ‘getting the house in order' with compliance-driven connectivity
  • Other clients who are fully digital have for months been pushing the envelope of proactive care to specialize, boost quality, and gain a competitive edge with referral sources.

What to shop for, what to stay away from — and how to know you're really getting what you're being told you're getting, and more.

  • Most providers have some type of custom interface between their system and a least one ancillary partner's system
  • Interfaces are expensive and time-consuming to develop and maintain

As the need for more connections or interfaces grows, so do costs and complexities. Interoperability brings new challenges and new opportunities. Connections are needed with more and more provider types, and multiple connections, managed improperly, can become a nightmare. 

The right interoperability strategy can help providers efficiently create connections with multiple providers who have a need for the same type of information, like Admission, Discharge and Transfer (ADT). Create an ADT packet once,  and through interoperability share it with multiple providers and provider types — and easily tweak if a specific provider needs something a little different.

Imagine how much easier and quicker that would be than creating a custom connection with each hospital, home care company, and ancillary partner (e.g., pharmacy, therapy, etc.) with whom a provider has relationships. For multi-site providers, costs would be off the charts. 

Whether independent owner or chain, providers would need an army of programmers to build connections and maintain them. Instead, AHT clients use low-cost, ONC-certified middleware, where the basic idea is we use a single set of standards-driven “hooks” to the middleware. Once done, the provider has freedom to connect with dozens of partners. We believe in "build once, recycle, reuse."

Teresa Chase is president and chief operating officer of American HealthTech.