Latest Developments in Healthcare Data Interoperability You Must Be Aware Of

Interoperability in healthcare implies timely and secure access, integration, and utilization of electronic health records for population health management. Healthcare interoperability systems make sharing data and delivering integrated care or collaborative care easier. Interoperability healthcare enables understanding of an individual population’s health needs and can also generate higher revenue. A healthcare interoperability solution can increase patient engagement and involvement in their treatment plans. Patients can be more involved in decision-making and have a say in how their medical records would be used and the people who can access them through healthcare interoperability solutions. Healthcare interoperability companies can help healthcare providers achieve better care coordination, high performance, and better patient experience.

Key challenges with interoperability in healthcare

1. Too many standards

Interoperability in healthcare is a team effort, and standards should facilitate this. However, adopting different standards like message formats, FHIR, and EHR can be challenging due to their different information exchange rules, leading to a disjointed implementation process for clinics. This is because these standards establish different rules for information exchange, preventing clinics from following the same practices as other healthcare facilities.

2. Too much data to handle

Interoperability in healthcare involves managing various data sources, including EHR/EMR systems, IoT sources, and internal hospital systems. Overflowing health data can disrupt processes, so it’s crucial to manage these simultaneously. To prevent this, investing in data integration tools and healthcare analytics solutions is essential. This ensures efficient and effective healthcare operations.

3. Disorganized data exchange practices

Interoperability in healthcare faces challenges due to providers imposing fees on accessing health data, such as patients’ EHRs and insurance companies refusing to share health data with providers. Information blocking, where providers charge fees to access health data, is a significant obstacle to health interoperability solutions. In a perfect world, insurers would allow access to patients’ claims, but this is not always possible due to their reluctance.

4. Lack of skills and resources

Interoperability in medical settings requires collaboration between clinicians, insurers, and government agencies. However, many medical settings lack the financial resources to implement necessary changes, requiring initial investments beyond clinic budgets. Lack of training also hinders smooth interoperability for healthcare, as stakeholders must invest in staff upskilling to streamline workflows and ensure everyone knows how to use interoperable systems, which takes time.

Levels of Healthcare Interoperability

1. Foundational level

Foundational interoperability allows data to be interpreted by users without being machine-readable. This means that the receiving system doesn’t need to interpret the data it receives. For instance, a patient’s history can be sent via a PDF file, and the responsible nurse can manually input the data into the EHR system.

2. Structural level

Structural interoperability is a medium complexity concept that defines the data structure of information exchange between systems. It allows for standardized message formatting, enabling interpretation at the individual field level. Standards like FHIR and Health Level 7 (HL7) ensure this interoperability at the healthcare level.

3. Semantic level

Semantic interoperability enables seamless information exchange between systems with different data structures, such as medical imaging. It allows systems to transfer and receive images in different formats, interpret them, and integrate them into the receiving end, ensuring efficient healthcare communication.

4. Organizational level

Organizational interoperability involves governance, policy, social, legal, and organizational issues, facilitating secure, frictionless, and timely data exchange between organizations. It integrates within workflows, including data governance, policies, consent management, and security protocols, allowing facilities with different requirements to exchange medical data.

Tips for improving data interoperability in healthcare

1. Ensure anonymity

Healthcare organizations prioritize patient privacy, ensuring no unauthorized third party can view patient information without complete anonymization. This applies to external vendors, researchers, and anyone not directly involved in a patient’s care, ensuring complete confidentiality.

2. Establish a reliable patient consent process

To enhance healthcare data interoperability, create a transparent consent protocol that encourages user participation, including policies that restrict data access and transmission in ways patients disagreed with. Explain how patient information can aid in innovative treatments and save lives, and partner with organizations known for patient advocacy work.

3. Manage IT integration

To create a successful data ecosystem, consider two key aspects: a data layer that offers APIs for partners to integrate data repositories, ensuring compliance with common healthcare IT interoperability standards, and a data management strategy that ensures consistency and privacy. Explore other healthcare data applications after investing in data organization.

4. Move your data to the cloud

Healthcare organizations are increasingly adopting healthcare cloud solutions such as cloud-based EHRs, with 82% of urban small practices adopting such systems, and 81% reporting satisfaction with the system. This shift has numerous benefits, including improved data interoperability services in the healthcare sector.

The Latest Trends In Healthcare Data Interoperability

Healthcare data interoperability can promote innovation and the sharing of information across multiple systems and health networks. Let’s look at the top 5 trends in healthcare data interoperability. 

1. Big Data

Big data in healthcare refers to the abundant health data collected from various sources, including electronic health records, medical imaging, wearables, genomic sequencing, medical devices, etc. Big data and healthcare information interoperability is the new future for healthcare systems. When healthcare technology is at its peak, big data and healthcare IT interoperability software are a great combination. With new technologies will come more big data, which can be successfully managed and used with integration and interoperability in healthcare. Clinical interoperability in healthcare systems makes it easier to collect big data, share, and manage it through a secure platform and at the same time comply with HIPAA regulations.   

2. HL7-FHIR

FHIR is an essential component of interoperability solutions in healthcare; it stands for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources. It is a standard open-source framework for healthcare data designed to simplify the transfer of healthcare data from one system to another. FHIR in interoperability healthcare systems organizes data into resources, such as patients, and medications, and offers a standardized structure for data organization and interpretation by different networks or applications. Solutions to healthcare interoperability services can be utilized for managing data, including claims information and appointment management. The latest regulations on integration and interoperability in healthcare insist on adopting FHIR on a wide scale. Organizations need to integrate FHIR for enhanced healthcare data interoperability.

3. APIs

Healthcare providers face roadblocks while assessing and sharing patient data, mainly as health IT adopts cloud-based technologies and healthcare data interoperability. Different applications use different interfaces, where interoperability of healthcare IT and APIs come into the picture. The organizations are seeking to implement interoperability standards in healthcare between applications, EHRs, and other tools, and are looking to integrate application programming interfaces (APIs) for managing the flow of data between different systems. An API is an interface that allows communication between unrelated software programs. They act as bridges between two applications, thereby supporting data flow, irrespective of how initially designed the application was. As healthcare is transitioning into value-based care, APIs in a healthcare provider interoperability platform can ensure that patient data is accessible to the users while safeguarding them from external threats.  

4. EHR integration

Digital health will continue to soar high over the next decade, with an estimated market exceeding $379 billion by 2024. This growth makes it necessary to integrate electronic health records (EHRs) into a healthcare interoperability system. EHR integration in health data interoperability can leverage data and insights from digital health tools to provide relevant information, alerts to threats and opportunities, and financial and operational guidance at the source of care. Since EHR interoperability is becoming the main electronic interface in modern healthcare, it is crucial for data management with advanced health data interoperability. Healthcare systems should integrate EHR with and data interoperability health systems to smooth data flow across many digital sources.  

5. Deep Interoperability

KLAS’s research body reported that deep operability had doubled recently, but healthcare organizations are yet to report its successful implementation. The progress of healthcare data interoperability solution can be measured in different ways, usually with metrics. These may include the number of data-sharing connections between organizations or the number of documents transferred across systems providers, overcoming interoperability challenges in healthcare. The trouble with these metrics is that they fail to achieve the ultimate goal of interoperability, which is to support smooth access to and sharing of patient data for improved patient care. Deep interoperability enables clinicians to access data sources and use healthcare automation to locate patient records, view data, and manage them. It is becoming an integral part of healthcare data interoperability.

6. Blockchain Integration for Security

Blockchain technology is expected to significantly improve healthcare data interoperability, as its decentralized and tamper-resistant nature ensures the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive health information. This technology has the potential to transform healthcare, putting patients at the center and increasing security, with a surge in blockchain-integrated solutions in 2024.

7. Edge Computing for Real-Time Interoperability

In 2024, edge computing will become a significant trend in healthcare data interoperability, allowing real-time data exchange and analysis closer to the source, minimizing latency, and enhancing decision-making. This is particularly important in healthcare scenarios where immediate decisions can significantly impact patient outcomes.

Conclusion

With telehealth, mHealth, and other digital health tools trending, learning how to utilize healthcare data interoperability to its maximum potential is essential. These top 5 latest developments in healthcare data interoperability would help to improve care delivery and care management. OSP can help you successfully integrate data interoperability in healthcare. Our experts can create custom software solutions that can make data sharing a simple task. We can design the interoperability solution you need and ensure HIPAA compliance.