When people ask me what the big deal is with electronic health records, I often talk about my nonexistent childhood medical records.
A few years ago, I was asked to provide immunization records for MMR and chickenpox in order to provide at-the-elbow support at a hospital. When I called my pediatrician’s office, I learned that per an Indiana state law that mandated the destruction of medical records for patients inactive for more than seven years, my paper medical records no longer existed. Not only were my immunization records unavailable (don’t worry, they didn’t make me get the shots again—thank goodness for titers), my entire childhood medical history was gone.
Contrast that with the reality of children born in the past five years—their entire medical life will be documented in a digital medical record. That means that throughout their entire lives, doctors will have a complete picture of their health, leading to improved care and maybe even earlier detection of major health issues.
Electronic health records enable clinicians to read research findings and quickly search their patient charts to determine who could benefit from a newly discovered intervention, or quickly determine which of their patients might be at risk based on new findings. Medical researchers have an increased availability of longitudinal cohorts that will be available at the local, regional, national, and international level thanks to readily accessible digital records. At the very least, it should be incredibly easy for the next generation of at-the-elbow support staff to provide accurate proof of past immunizations.
When I explain to people the power of medical data being available, they are generally able to wrap their heads around the immediate benefits—it is easy enough for them to see why electronic medical records are a really big deal. However, the full potential of digital medical records will only be realized if the healthcare industry takes the right steps toward making the open exchange of information smooth, easy, and seamless. This is something that isn’t always so readily understood, but couldn’t be more critical. It’s why solving interoperability is one of healthcare’s most important challenges.
At Redox, we work with a multitude of amazing applications offering healthcare technology solutions that expand the functionality of electronic health record systems and reimagine the way providers deliver (and patients receive) care. At conferences, you hear discussions around the need for patient engagement applications, how telemedicine visits will help ACOs keep track of their patients, and all of the increidble ways we could harness the power of “big data”. There is so much excitement around the potential of technology-enabled healthcare, but there is always one caveat: it is still too difficult to access the data required to deliver major breakthroughs. The systems don’t “talk” to each other and the necessary resources to establish sophisticated data sharing relationships are rarely available.
When it comes to opinions on how the market should evolve in order to realize digital health’s potential, it often feels like the request is geared towards comprehensive EHRs or government legislation. Instead of recognizing the options that exist today and focusing on ways to support the companies that have already figured out how to do these things well, people are putting their faith in unknown future developments. In many ways, the adoption of digital health technologies capable of maximizing the value of digital medical records has been inhibited by people waiting for the big EHR vendors to come up with solutions that fit into the enterprise box. Its time to stop waiting and start working with the more-than-viable solutions we have.
If interoperability was a switch that could be flipped, we’d see healthcare begin to adopt new technologies more quickly, allowing the best solutions to differentiate themselves and rise to the top. Currently, many health care systems are faced with making large, expensive decisions about investing in health applications without having the opportunity to test drive the product they’re buying. If the product falls short, they often are stuck with it for months (or even years) to either justify the purchase, or live with it until they have money in the budget to replace it. This market inefficiency has created an environment of skepticism and conservative decision making that is slowing our ability to fully realize the benefits of digital health.
Smooth and easy interoperability provides health care decision makers with the option of taking new technology solutions for a test drive and making a more informed decision based on how the product actually performs in their unique setting. It allows multiple products to be compared head to head and provides digital health innovators with the data they need to receive critical feedback from actual users. It allows us to harness the power of large data sets for sophisticated analysis which could lead to game changing breakthroughs in medical research.
Transitioning to electronic medical records was undeniably a step in right direction. The foundation they’ve established means the future of health care can begin happening now. All that is needed to move forward is for us to recognize what actions can be taken today in order to make the data usable. The sooner we break the barrier of interoperability, the sooner we can realize the full potential of digital medical records to positively impact patient care.