Before the explosion of managed care, electronic health records (EHRs), hospital mega-mergers, and just before the rise of hospitalists, primary care physicians had a very different role.
Leaders in the field who have practiced over several decades have different ideas about what has had the biggest effect in the last 20 years, but all agree they see their careers very differently than they did in 1995.
What are some of the most substantial health IT issues that are hindering the healthcare field? A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found that EHR functionalities that lacked integrated care management software and care plans, weak practice registry and EHR interoperability, and meager capabilities for patient tracking have all led to significant challenges for primary care teams.
The financial burden of health information exchange (HIE) and the difficulty of wrangling multiple vendors into some sense of interoperability are among the top challenges facing the national health IT infrastructure and the shift towards population health management, according to the eHealth Initiative’s 2014 survey. While Stage 2 of meaningful use has pushed the industry towards wider adoption of Direct messaging and registry reporting, providers have a long road to travel before data exchange becomes simple and seamless across the care continuum.
Many accountable care organizations are struggling with advanced IT functions and interoperability, a survey of 62 ACOs conducted in July and August 2014 by Premier and the eHealth Initiative shows.
“Most ACOs are still at the stage of basic care-coordination capabilities,” said Bryan Bowles, Premier's vice president of population health solution management, Wednesday on a call discussing the survey. “The challenges of blending disparate data have hindered uptake of more advanced functions.”
