Despite struggles and obstacles related to interoperability, hospitals are exchanging, sharing and using outside data more often than before.
Here are five statistics on the state of interoperability.
1. According to the latest data brief from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, 52 percent of hospitals can electronically find patient health information, 85 percent can send patient summary of care records, 65 percent can receive such records and 38 percent can use or integrate those records into their own EHRs without manual entry in 2015.
2. More than a quarter of hospitals (26 percent) conduct all four of these key domains of interoperability, up from 23 percent in 2014.
3. From 2008 to 2014, the percentage of hospitals electronically exchanging laboratory results, radiology reports, clinical care summaries or medication lists with outside hospitals doubled, from 41 percent to 82 percent.
4. More than half of hospitals said their providers use patient health information that is electronically received from outside providers: 18 percent said providers often use this information, and 35 percent said they sometimes use this information. Thirty-six percent said their providers either rarely or never use this information.
5. The most common reasons providers report rarely or never using patient health information they electronically receive is that it is not available to view within their EHR (53 percent), followed by difficulty integrating information into the EHR (45 percent), information not always being available when needed (40 percent), information not presented in a useful format (29 percent) or a distrust of information accuracy (11 percent).
More articles on interoperability:
ONC launches 2 award programs totaling $1.5M to boost interoperability, data standards
Surveys show plug and play middleware tools are fixing interoperability
Practice Fusion joins in HHS' Interoperability Pledge