As of last year, many non-federal acute care hospitals are still using non-electronic methods to send and receive patient data, according to new data from ONC (the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT).
ONC’s analysis of 2017 data from the American Hospital Association’s (AHA’s) Information Technology Supplement Survey aimed to see which methods hospitals use to exchange summary of care records. ONC also presented hospitals’ participation rates in health information networks and variation in the methods used to exchange information.
The analysis found that a majority of hospitals used more than one electronic method to routinely send (78 percent) and receive (61 percent) summary of care records with outside organizations. And more than half of hospitals used four or more electronic methods to routinely send summary of care records to organizations outside their hospital system.
What’s more, health information service providers (HISPs) were the most commonly used to exchange summary of care records. Breaking down further the different type of exchange methods used:
- About seven in 10 hospitals sent (66 percent) or received (73 percent) summary of care records using mail or fax in 2017
- About a quarter of hospitals used multi-electronic health record (EHR) vendor networks to send or receive summary of care records; a similar percentage used e-Health Exchange to send or receive summary of care records
- Half of hospitals routinely used a state, regional, or local HIO to send summary of care records; four in 10 hospitals routinely used these entities to receive summary of care records
- Half of hospitals used interface connections between EHR systems to send summary of care records and three in 10 hospitals used interface connections to receive summary of care records
- Hospitals that used more electronic methods to receive summary of care records were more likely to have and use patient health information electronically available at the point of care
- Small, rural, and CAHs (critical access hospitals) had higher rates of using non-electronic methods to send and receive summary of care records with sources outside their hospital system than their counterparts
- About a quarter of small, rural, and CAHs exclusively used non-electronic methods to receive summary of care records
- In sum, a majority of hospitals—regardless of type—sent and received summary of care records using a mixture of electronic and non-electronic methods
Regarding health information exchanges, (HIEs), about four in 10 hospitals participated in more than one nationwide network, such as Surescripts, the e-Health Exchange, DirectTrust, CommonWell, or Carequality. Surescripts was the most commonly network used; 61 percent of hospitals participated. The next highest participation rates were in DirectTrust and the e-Health Exchange; about a quarter of hospitals participated in each. About one in three hospitals (30 percent) did not report participating in a national network.
Finally, the data showed that about half of hospitals participated in both a national network and a state, regional, or local HIO. Approximately 69 percent engaged with a state, regional, or local HIO, while 19 percent participated in a national network but not a state, local, or regional HIO.
Using the same data set, ONC recently revelated that when it comes to the four domains of interoperability—electronically finding, sending, receiving, and integrating data from outside one’s own organization—just 41 percent of hospitals reported that they were able to engage in all four functions in 2017.
