Perficient has created this series, “Healthcare Analytics and Meaningful Use” to drive discussions around unlocking the true potential of EHRs with analytics. Stay tuned for this four-part series to be published throughout October and November. We welcome your comments and questions below.
Healthcare decision makers are being called upon to reduce waste, improve operational processes, and identify organization and community needs by using healthcare data to make informed decisions. The new set of objectives has resulted in a frantic need for better information to make more informed decisions. As a result organizations need to integrate systems to ensure that data is readily accessible.
System integration provides a solution to the problems and inefficiencies throughout the healthcare delivery chain stemming from a disconnected process. Healthcare organizations are investing heavily in updating outdated HIT systems with new integrated platforms to allow data sources from multiple places to be housed and available for analysis and to change their approach to healthcare from a traditional model to a patient centric model.
How organizations change the way they deliver care is heavily dependent upon technology and access to data. While EHRs are an important part of the solution, the ability to share, exchange and integrate data from the EHRs and other service components across the healthcare delivery spectrum is critical. In other words, after the patient has visited a specialist a summary of that visit needs to be shared electronically with their primary care physician. By sharing information the vacuum that typically plagues the healthcare industry is replaced with a strong network of information that serves care givers, patients, healthcare organization and public health agencies.
System integration is a critical piece to making the most out of HIT investments and to ensure that healthcare is delivered in an affordable fashion that drives quality. As the national vision of a connected and interoperable healthcare industry becomes more of a reality, organizations are examining how they can benefit from better connecting their own systems.
Organizations must find a way to draw data together in a fashion that will aid the organization, their patients and partners. The solution must avoid redundancies and sufficiently meet operational and clinical needs – meaning improve outcomes while also lowering costs.
While system integration is necessary to provide analytics, there is only so much money available to fund the endeavor. Stay tuned for the final post – When Containing Costs Contain Solutions.
Want to learn more? Register for our upcoming analytics webinar and you will be entered to win one of two Perficient client badges to the February HIMSS Conference in Las Vegas!
