Use of health information systems has abundant benefits beyond federal financial incentives: improved care coordination, minimal data collection burden, rich clinical context and longitudinal patient data aggregation. However, use of health information technology also poses significant challenges, including workflow barriers, lack of standardization and limited system interoperability.
The report outlines key recommendations to overcome these challenges:
• Create protocols for non-physician clinical or support staff to enter selected information in structured fields to address underutilization of health IT system capabilities and clinical workflow barriers.
• Align measure specifications with existing guidelines or elements of other quality measures to address lack of data standardization and limited health IT system interoperability.
• Disseminate evaluations of data quality.
• Bring leaders of competing healthcare organizations together to facilitate dialog and encourage information sharing.
It also lists near-term measurement opportunities (feasible within the next two or three years) that could help healthcare organizations optimize care coordination with health IT:
• Use Meaningful Use measure data elements in new measures of care coordination.
• Use EHR data to confirm inclusion of key information from other healthcare settings within primary care record.
• Use claims data to confirm follow-up care occurred within expected time frame.
• Use claims data to examine instances of redundant testing.
The report goes into further detail about how to implement these action steps and how to establish long-term goals that are not feasible within the next three years.
Related Articles on Care Coordination:
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