Building EHR to HIE to Analytics. A few thoughts.
Building EHR to HIE to Analytics. A few thoughts.
Terry Richardson (terrrich@nova.edu) “The biggest issues in the design, configuration, and implementation of EHR and HIE technology are that we need to better understand what needs to be built, the difficulty in building these kinds of systems, and that HIT needs to serve physicians in a way that augments their job and their ability to treat patients.”
The concept itself is simple enough. We supply physicians with information systems such as electronic health records (EHRs) that feed data into larger systems such as Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) that allow ambulatory doctors, clinics, and hospital systems to share data so that we minimize duplicate products and services. We then track the physician compliance to measures that were built to help in cost reduction and quality control (analytics). This is not complex to explain or to have understood. Still, if we survey physicians and ask why there are some many EHR products and HIE initiatives in the country, the answers would run the gamut and few would agree with the description above. Even those that would agree would be quick to point that nowhere in that description is there a consideration for the impact the technology (as designed) has on physicians.
The Health Information Technology (HIT) industry initially designed products that work as information collection systems and protocol compliance systems. Maybe these are not poorly constructed plans for the first iteration of EHR and HIE. However, we need HIT that improves the physician experience and the quality of care that patients receive. The biggest issues in the design, configuration, and implementation of EHR and HIE technology are that we need to better understand what needs to be built, the difficulty in building these kinds of systems, and that HIT needs to serve physicians in a way that augments their job and their ability to treat patients. Very few HIE or analytics projects start
Terry Richardson (terrrich@nova.edu) “The biggest issues in the design, configuration, and implementation of EHR and HIE technology are that we need to better understand what needs to be built, the difficulty in building these kinds of systems, and that HIT needs to serve physicians in a way that augments their job and their ability to treat patients.”
The concept itself is simple enough. We supply physicians with information systems such as electronic health records (EHRs) that feed data into larger systems such as Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) that allow ambulatory doctors, clinics, and hospital systems to share data so that we minimize duplicate products and services. We then track the physician compliance to measures that were built to help in cost reduction and quality control (analytics). This is not complex to explain or to have understood. Still, if we survey physicians and ask why there are some many EHR products and HIE initiatives in the country, the answers would run the gamut and few would agree with the description above. Even those that would agree would be quick to point that nowhere in that description is there a consideration for the impact the technology (as designed) has on physicians.
The Health Information Technology (HIT) industry initially designed products that work as information collection systems and protocol compliance systems. Maybe these are not poorly constructed plans for the first iteration of EHR and HIE. However, we need HIT that improves the physician experience and the quality of care that patients receive. The biggest issues in the design, configuration, and implementation of EHR and HIE technology are that we need to better understand what needs to be built, the difficulty in building these kinds of systems, and that HIT needs to serve physicians in a way that augments their job and their ability to treat patients. Very few HIE or analytics projects start