In the world of Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), as with many other challenges in Healthcare IT, the regulations are constantly changing, and it can be hard for providers to keep up.

Let's take a look at state HIEs in particular. Many states are enacting legislation that will require connection to the state HIE. Do you know if your state is one of them?

Here's one example. The state of New York recently adopted the SHIN-NY regulation which, according to the April issue of the SHIN-NY Spotlight, "This regulation provides guidance on how SHIN-NY is operated. Additionally, the policy directs all Article 28 hospitals to connect to the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY) on or before March 2017 and other regulated facilities in New York to connect by March 2018."

Connecting to an HIE and achieving true Interoperability are challenges CIOs face on a daily basis. This is evident based on the number of industry publications that cover this topic almost every day. It’s because the challenge of sharing patient data across disparate systems, and achieving interoperability, are very difficult things to accomplish. And every hospital’s situation is different, which contributes to the complexity.

Is interoperability a challenge at your hospital? Do the frank opinions of hospital CIOs matter to you?

If so, you might be interested in the thoughts and perspectives shared in a focus group at HIMSS16. The topic: Defining Interoperability Challenges, Priorities, and Solutions for 2016. About 18 CIOs attended, representing hospitals, public health agencies, and similar organizations.

Patient identity challenges are not going away

We had total control. We undid the registration, documentation, lab results, charges, and any other bits and pieces, only to re-enter them on the new patient and account. Boy did we complain! 

Interoperability can mean many things.

Interoperability is one of those words that conjures up very different visuals for each of us. Paper cups attached by string, the WiFi router in your home, the towers and satellites that allow your text to be sent across the world in milliseconds, and the NASA space station, are all examples of interoperability. 

In healthcare, it might mean electronically receiving the lab order from the doctor’s office, or aggregating and sharing in target-system-ese, the problems, meds, and allergies of every patient in Massachusetts.

Some might say the term interoperability is overused, but it’s shorter than saying, “take thousands of proprietary systems that were created as good ol', 'stand-alone, I don’t need anyone, I am king of the hill, you can’t boss me around,' and make them share information.” 

There’s no question that the healthcare industry has made huge advances in switching from paper records to electronic health records in the last 5-10 years.

You can thank Meaningful Use for most of this, but now that we are well into Stage 2, and Stage 3 is in question, where does that leave hospitals and the future of EHRs?

Now that hospitals are settling in with their EHR systems, they’re taking a closer look to see if the system they chose is really working for them, their physicians, clinical staff, and most importantly, the patient.

I recently attended the first Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative (SHIEC) annual meeting in Deer Valley, Utah. If you are not familiar with this group, it’s a group of regional or state HIEs that formed a collaborative late last year. (check out more information on their website here).

I recently heard the best analogy that sums up what EHR optimization is all about. They said:

“just having the data in the system, but not being able to access it easily, is like having all the records in a gigantic filing cabinet that you have to manually search through each time you need information.”

Picture this…you’ve just gone live with your new EHR. It’s all in the past and you are feeling proud of the effort you and your team has put forth. As the final chapter in a multi-year-long story comes to a close, you turn the (hypothetical) last page only to read the words… “The Beginning.” What?!? Yes, you read that right. Welcome to the beginning of a new story. You see, selecting an EHR, implementing an EHR, and living with an EHR day in and day out are three different stories from the same trilogy. Congratulations on finishing the first two stories! You are now about to begin the third and (hopefully) the longest in the saga.