healthcare organizations

2,012 provider HIE users and 2,300 payer HIE users, as well as 4,100 prospective HIE users of all user types were polled to understand the importance of interoperability in their strategic planning initiatives, as well as their ongoing and new challenges in areas such as connectivity and data exchange. Between Q3 2015 and Q1 2016, the survey recorded growing HIE user frustration over the lack of standardization and readiness of unprepared providers and payers...“Every stakeholder in the healthcare delivery process cannot establish the infrastructure needed to support interoperability, as evidenced by 83% of physician practices responding and 40% of hospitals, that currently admit they are still in the planning and catch up stages of sending and sharing secure, relevant data, “ said Doug Brown, Managing Partner of Black Book.

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ECRI Institute names diagnostic errors the number one concern on its 2018 Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for Healthcare Organizations. Each year, approximately 1 in 20 adults experiences a diagnostic error, according to published studies. These errors and delays can lead to care gaps, repeat testing, unnecessary procedures, and patient harm. “Diagnostic errors are not only common, but they can have serious consequences," says Gail M. Horvath, MSN, RN, CNOR, CRCST, patient safety analyst, ECRI Institute. "A lot of hospital deaths that were attributed to the normal course of disease may have been the result of diagnostic error."
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Astute observers have stated controlling healthcare costs is almost impossible. TIME magazine devoted their longest story in their history to this topic in The Bitter Pill by Steven Brill that was turned into a book. The solution to the problem that is outlined below addresses the massive pricing failure present in healthcare. That is, in most markets higher prices equates to higher quality. In healthcare, frequently the opposite is true. For example, it stands to reason that surgeons who do a procedure frequently are far more efficient and have far fewer complications than those who perform surgeries more infrequently...

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As hospitals, health systems and payers navigate the new risk-bearing landscape, synergies exist when clinical documentation improvement strategies are expanded to address both meaningful use (MU) SNOMED CT requirements and ICD-10. While the magnitude of the ICD-10 transition itself and the ongoing rumors of additional delays may tempt some organizations to pause in their pursuit of readiness, the bottom line is that advantages to clinical documentation can be realized even before the transition by using SNOMED CT within electronic health records...

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Last month, RAIN Live Oak, a member of the California Association of Health Information Exchanges, participated in the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) Connectathon 2015 to demonstrate the IHE Profile for Healthcare Provider Directory (HPD). Participation in the Connectahon, a week-long interoperability-testing event, was a significant opportunity for the advancement of the HPD standard, which supports management of healthcare provider information in a directory structure, and it proved to be an undeniable success. RAIN is a participant of the California Trusted Exchange Network (CTEN), which utilizes a federated architecture for Directory Services using HPD specifications. Read More »