3 Health IT Challenges Facing Home Health Agencies

Home healthcare is increasingly popular as a cost-effective method to improve quality of life by allowing individuals to receive care at home. However, home health agencies (HHAs) face distinct health IT challenges due to the remote nature of services, compounded by exclusion from federal interoperability adoption incentives.According to CMS, home healthcare is defined as a wide range of healthcare services that can be given in a patient's home for an illness or injury. Home healthcare can be short-term, aiding recovery post-hospital discharge, or long-term, helping chronically ill or disabled individuals maintain optimal function and health.While health IT interoperability benefits all healthcare providers, data sharing is particularly vital for home healthcare providers to ensure effective communication among the multidisciplinary teams involved in a patient's care.

Medigy Insights

While home health agencies (HHAs) are increasingly implementing EHR platforms, adoption lags behind other healthcare providers. According to a 2023 HHS report, over 85% of ambulatory practices and 95% of hospitals use EHRs, compared to 80% of HHAs.The report authors indicated that this divide is largely due to HHAs not receiving the federal EHR adoption incentives that drove widespread implementation across ambulatory practices and hospitals.Paper-based documentation within HHA can present challenges for providers. A survey-based study of HHA nurses and staff revealed that organizations lacking EHR systems experienced inefficient and time-consuming paper charting processes.

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