Mission Critical: Utilizing Technology to Advance Healthcare Interoperability

Health information management teams everywhere are constantly doing more, but somehow it always feels like playing catch up.Notably, between 30 and 47 percent of U.S. hospitals still rely on fax or mail to send and receive patient records. Only 40 percent of hospitals electronically integrate data from other hospitals outside of their system and only a distressing 30 percent of skilled nursing facilities exchange data outside of their walls.That adds up to a lot of additional work for staff chasing down medical records, valuable time wasted for providers who don’t have complete medical histories, and frustration for patients as they must wait for what feels like endless additional days or even weeks while critical appointments are delayed waiting on medical records.While many healthcare systems have moved away from mail, phone, and fax for medical records transfer, it’s clear that not enough have taken advantage of available technologies to maximize healthcare interoperability.