But access to data alone is not enough. Today’s interoperability solutions must transform fragmented data into meaningful and actionable insights, which is essential for addressing the industry’s most pressing challenges, from remaining independent to improving patient engagement.
To lead these efforts, MEDITECH is rolling out its nationwide Traverse Exchange network. This network removes barriers to care by embracing the open exchange of discrete patient information across all participating care networks and vendor solutions and making this data accessible through intelligent and intuitive workflows.
Here are five key areas where access to meaningful and actionable data has the most impact.
Maintaining Independence
In today’s age, healthcare organizations should never feel pressured to rip and replace EHRs simply to improve data exchange. The notion that there is any ROI in doing so is a false and deceptive narrative.
A major driver for today’s hospital mergers and acquisitions stems from the complexities of fragmented data — for instance, exchanging data between referral partners using disparate EHRs. However, rapid advancements in interoperability are eliminating this barrier. As organizations join QHINs and adopt advanced solutions like Traverse Exchange to synthesize meaningful information across health systems, data exchange becomes more seamlessly integrated within the clinician’s workflow.
With Traverse Exchange, organizations can preserve their autonomy and substantial EHR investments and redirect valuable IT resources toward other organizational and community needs, ensuring that healthcare remains local.
An Open Ecosystem of Innovation
The benefits of a modern, scalable, and intelligent EHR like Expanse is that it establishes a dynamic ecosystem of innovation and futureproofs an organization’s health IT strategy. A modern EHR collects, codifies, and normalizes data, optimizing its exchange via formats like FHIR.
The path to transformation lies in enabling open and fair access to the EHR platform for other cutting-edge developers in a way that promotes, not hinders, innovation. Organizations should have a choice in selecting the most advanced tools to best complement their IT strategy.
Empowering Patients
In today’s digital age, patients must have access to their records and not be hindered by a health system or EHR vendor’s inability or reluctance to share this data. Interoperability empowers patients to take a more active role in their healthcare, ensuring they receive comprehensive care — locally or nationally. Interoperability enables tech equity by ensuring smaller clinics and community health centers can access the same quality targeted patient information as large health systems. With support for individual access services, patients have greater control, enabling them to manage their care from one place using their preferred apps.
Reducing Clinician Burden
Data is only valuable if it can be used effectively, and clinicians shouldn’t have to sift through hundreds of pages of patient summaries to find the information they need.
Intelligent solutions are emerging to organize data in more intuitive and digestible ways. For example, MEDITECH’s Traverse Exchange offers an intelligent presentation of patient data embedded in the clinician’s workflow, eliminating redundancies and providing a high-level view of the specific data needed. Providing a comprehensive view of the patient’s health integrated into the workflow supports clinical decision-making, reduces cognitive load, and increases clinician satisfaction.
Improving Efficiency and Outcomes
The Interoperability tech stack continues to evolve, and the latest standard data sets, such as USCDI v4, facilitate more discrete and meaningful data exchange. Additionally, government policies like TEFCA promote a framework of national data exchange, opening access to healthcare data from anywhere. What does this mean for healthcare organizations? It means they never again need to face the pressure of investing in a new EHR or relinquishing their independence just to share data.
With Traverse Exchange, MEDITECH enables clinicians to exchange a broader range of discrete patient data, helping them identify targeted treatments, lower costs, reduce duplicate testing, and improve patient outcomes. The network will also expand beyond the Core USCDI requirements to exchange more advanced data elements, such as genomic data, clinical trials, and advanced directives.
It’s an exciting time to be in healthcare, with innovation happening across every sector. Now is the time to establish your interoperable foundation to take full advantage of what’s on the horizon.
Learn how MEDITECH’s Traverse Exchange positions MEDITECH and its customers for the future of interoperable data exchange at HIMSS25.