3 Ways to Enhance Healthcare Interoperability with Health IT

Despite advances in health information technology, interoperability in the healthcare world is an area that needs to improve to benefit the providers and especially patient wellness. In a recent ONC data brief, researchers analyzed data from the National EHR Surveys from 2015 to 2017 and came to the conclusion that interoperability has been somewhat stagnant over the two year time period. In fact, only about 10 percent of physicians were able to send, receive, and integrate health data into their respective EHR systems. Physicians’ engagement in electronically sending, receiving, and integrating information received from outside sources did not change between 2015 and 2017,  stated ONC. Healthcare needs to lean on other emerging technologies and strategies to boost interoperability. Taking advantage of the surge of artificial intelligence in healthcare, empowering patient engagement with health data, and bolstering health information exchanges, industry leaders can begin to chip away at the healtcare interoperability problem.