EHR Interoperability - Blog

Are the missing interoperable EHRs at long term care providers, affecting patient outcomes..?

By Vishnu Saxena – VP & Business Head - Diaspark Healthcare We at Diaspark Healthcare, have been working with long term care, home healthcare and EMR software companies over the last couple of years. Recently, we started our Provider (Hospital) practice. While it is true that more and more hospitals are adopting electronic health records and aligning (there is no choice!) with changes driven by Affordable Care Act, however we realize that there is not much integration of Long-term, senior care and rehab settings into their networks. This integration between both settings would be key to achieving better patient outcomes and fewer readmissions. What is the cause..? Lets find out.

Since, Long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) providers are much behind in the adoption of EHRs when compared with their hospitals and physician counterparts, the link to exchange critical information between acute and long-term care providers that supports more integrated care is broken . Senior-care providers, already stretched by low reimbursements, are struggling to determine how to invest in HIT, particularly interoperable EHR. It is a proven fact that one of the key goals of healthcare reform is to reduce readmissions, however, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has not certified or made clear the expectations for long-term care EHRs. Yet for senior-care facilities to integrate with local acute-care providers for delivering better outcomes for residents, there is no other choice but to have an EHR. The health information documented by a Long-term care setting is different from what hospitals capture. Utilizing a similar platform that can navigate and perform similar functionality will facilitate collection of important data and will allow both settings to stay focused on the patient.

It is imperative that hospitals should be able to access and be familiar with the records of the patients coming to them from senior-care organizations. Similarly, long-term care providers must be able to read the hospital's records and understand the prescribed care plans. Given the penalties placed on reducing readmissions among Medicare beneficiaries, Long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) providers are looking at feds for guidelines to achieve interoperability.

It’s clear that long term and post-acute care providers face big change in the next few years, as the demographics of aging, increasing incidence of chronic diseases, workforce challenges and uncertainty about how well government-driven changes to the health and services for the aged will work.

As per the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services announcement that “Half of all doctors and other eligible providers have received Medicare or Medicaid incentive payments for adopting or meaningfully using electronic health records (EHRs).” The adoption rate for hospitals stands at about 80%. The adoption rate for long-term care providers, however, is much lower. With the right technology tools and competencies, aging-services organizations can be strategic partners with other care providers in a number of health reform opportunities.