Tag: Donald M. Voltz

Can a Middleware Prescription Cure Healthcare’s EHR Interoperability Disorder?

Guest post by Donald M. Voltz, MD, Aultman Hospital, Department of Anesthesiology, Medical Director of the Main Operating Room, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, Case Western Reserve University and Northeast Ohio Medical University; and Thanh Tran, CEO, Zoeticx, Inc. 

The ECRI Institute released in May a survey outlining the top 10 safety concerns for healthcare organizations in 2015. The second highest concern is incorrect or missing data in EHRs and other health IT systems.

HIEs? The latest Black Book survey in the U.S. finds that 90 percent of hospitals and 94 percent of independent physicians don’t trust the business model of public HIEs and have concerns over how much of the cost payers will be fronting, causing a contraction in the HIE market. Even the ONC and medical industry are at odds on how to address the interoperability issue. The ONC does not even mention middleware in any of its plans.

Even HL7 does not provide the seamless connection of middleware and is only capable of connecting one medical facility to another, requiring specific end point interfaces to even do that. For every additional facility, a customized interface must be built. At the end of the day, HL7 is really a point-to-point customized interface requiring extra steps. A middleware platform does not tie developers to specific hospitals or EMRs and allows universal access.

Meanwhile, yet another survey cites the tragedy of a lack of interoperability. A new survey of nurses nationwide, taken by the Gary and Mary West Health Institute, find that some 60 percent of registered nurses say medical errors could significantly decrease if hospital medical devices were coordinated and interoperable. Also, 74 percent of these nurses agreed that it is burdensome to coordinate the data collected by medical devices and 93 percent agreed that medical devices should be able to seamlessly share data with one another automatically.

Half of them claim they actually witness medical mistakes because of lack of interoperability of these devices. Some 46 percent of RN respondents also noted that when it comes to manual transcription from one device to another, an error is “extremely” or “very likely to occur.”

From a cost perspective, West Health Institute officials estimate that a connected, fully interoperable health system could save a potential $30 billion each year by reducing transcription errors, manual data entry and redundant tests. Meanwhile physicians and surgeons struggle with interoperability on a daily basis.

According to data published on HealthIT.gov, 173 health IT vendors are supplying certified EHR products to more than 4,500 hospitals. Despite wide penetration of EHR’s in hospitals, clinics and physician offices, access to patient information between systems continues to plaque our healthcare system.

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