BUSINESS

  technology

Making the Connection

Your EHR must “talk” with other healthcare technology.

April Jasper, O.d.

EHR was born out of an idea to streamline healthcare by dramatically decreasing transcription errors, reducing medication mistakes and increasing accessibility to patient records by both patients and physicians.

Has this been the case? The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology indicates the answer is “no.” Specifically, its 2014 Edition EHR Certification Criteria Required to Satisfy the Base EHR Definition includes the following, “Has the capacity to exchange electronic health information with, and integrate such information from other sources.” What this is saying is that, in order for an EHR to be certified for Stage 2 Meaningful Use, connectivity is required.

It’s complicated

Without connectivity, EHR complicates the exchange of information for healthcare professionals: We all learn our EHR. We learn all the data fields for the different conditions we see every day. Also, we learn how to document quickly and how to train our staff to be more efficient. Then we get a request for records, requiring us to either send an encrypted electronic file or to print the paper record from the EHR — bye, bye office efficiency. For the receiver’s part, they must try to decipher our EHR print out, as it is specific to our specialty.

A hospitalist who goes from one hospital to another doing locum tenens work told me that EHR systems have made his job twice if not three times as difficult. The reasons: Every hospital EHR system is different, making reviewing records extremely time consuming. In addition, the hospitals eliminated nursing personnel who used to enter orders on paper, so the doctors have no paper trail to prove the orders they personally had to enter into the EHR were saved and transmitted.

Ask your vendor about the options that can be integrated with your system.

Three types of connectivity

To accomplish EHR connectivity, we must be able to integrate our in-office technology with our EHR, so the information we capture can be imported into our EHR in a format that can be shown to our patients. Second, we must be able to seamlessly send patient information, including images, to another healthcare professional’s EHR. This connectivity is mandatory if we truly hope to improve patient care. Finally, we must be able to integrate patient information from other professionals with our EHR to once again improve patient care, but also to streamline data entry and review.

The first of these three types of connectivity can be accomplished today. With the help of image management software, this process of integration is simple: All captured images can be saved within one’s EHR and then transmitted as well, provided the EHR integrates with the other in-office technology. The second and third types of connectivity will be incorporated into some of the EHR systems. For other EHR systems, it will be a separately purchased product that will be made available sometime this year. The best suggestion here is to contact your vendor to determine the options that can be integrated with your system.

Meaningful use compliance

Few EHR systems have completed the connectivity process as of now, yet they will be required to or at least offer a solution that integrates with their system by October 1, 2014 if they are to be compliant with Stage 2 Meaningful Use. OM

Dr. Jasper is a Vision Source Administrator and in private practice in West Palm Beach, Fla. E-mail her at drjasper@aeswpb.com, or comment at optometricmanagement@gmail.com.