How to Achieve Interoperability in Healthcare After the Pandemic
Daily Host News takes a look at a topic we consider integral to the future of the healthcare industry, and that is Interoperability. As important as it was previous to the COVID emergency, interoperability is now absolutely crucial in a pandemic environment.
Their definition of interoperability is as follows:
It is the ability of distinct software applications and information systems to communicate and exchange data between the systems that help provide critical insights for better working of the overall processes.
They further separate interoperability into four classifications:
This level of interoperability adds various non-technical components to the system. The components consist of social and organizational aspects along with different exchange policies. Using these aspects, interoperability is integrated within organizational workflows. Together with other technical levels, a seamless data exchange between different healthcare organizations is established.
This level of healthcare interoperability is used for defining the syntax for data exchange. It helps the receiving information system to comprehend the data at the field level.
Semantic interoperability is one of the most substantial levels in healthcare systems. The level allows the information systems to exchange and entirely interpret the received data. The high demand for this level is due to its ability to exchange the patient’s data through electronic mediums between authorized users.
This level of interoperability adds various non-technical components to the system. The components consist of social and organizational aspects along with different exchange policies. Using these aspects, interoperability is integrated within organizational workflows. Together with other technical levels, a seamless data exchange between different healthcare organizations is established.
Interoperability Benefits = Hospital Growth
Undoubtedly, interoperability has many benefits, particularly when leveraging cloud-computing. The Daily Host highlights several of these benefits, including:
- Time Saving in Business and Administrative Processes
- Enhanced Patient Safety and Satisfaction
- Better Collaborations
- Value-Based Care
- Cost Efficiency with Deliverance of Better Quality
- More Financial Stability
Steps for Improving Interoperability
So, what are the most effective and efficient steps toward interoperability? Daily Host News cites the following:
- Use a health information exchange (HIE) system while diagnosing the patient.
- Make use of neuro-linguistic programming and voice recognition in your system.
- Move to a single integrated EHR platform.
- Integrate workflows with point-of-care images.
- Add excessive data and other workloads to the cloud.
- Invest in content-enabled EHR with the expanded patient records.
- Get an efficient and robust digital healthcare software for your hospital or clinic.
What was once a forward-looking way of getting a leg up on the competition has now become a virtual requirement for survival in the COVID era. Interoperability extends throughout healthcare, including revenue cycle and the data on from billing and payments. With paper-based remits and EOBs/EOPs and correspondence letters still key hurdles for healthcare providers and revenue cycle companies, it is important to take on this challenge by partnering with a trusted vendor that deploys AI and machine learning technologies to electronify these documents. This will enable a faster and more efficient payments process, and allow the data to flow smoothly to downstream business intelligence systems.
