Hospitals that use a health information exchange and a dominant health IT developer located within their city have higher rates of interoperability and are more likely to have information available than hospitals with neither, according to a recent ONC analysis.
For its October 2020 State of Interoperability among Major U.S. Cities report, ONC analyzed differences in interoperability between cities in terms of hospitals' abilities in four key domains: find, send, receive and integrate electronic health information with sources outside their health system. The analysis is based on 2018 data.
Three report findings:
1. Participating in an HIE and having an EHR from a dominant health IT developer located within the city leads to the highest rates of interoperability at 79 percent.
2. Hospitals that participate in HIEs but do not have an EHR from the dominant health IT developer within a city are less likely to engage in interoperability than hospitals with a dominant health IT developer but without participating in an HIE.
3. Of the hospitals that neither participated in an HIE nor have a dominant health IT developer located within the same city, only 10 percent engaged in interoperability.