We’ve come an incredibly long way from a year ago. Experiencing one of the deadliest pandemics in history has a way of making us pause and reflect. The pandemic has and will continue to have a profound impact on the need for and the manner in which we exchange health data. We have an opportunity to learn from the experience and ensure we are better prepared for the future.
Read on to hear from a few of our members on how they believe the pandemic will impact Health IT and interoperability moving forward.
How has the pandemic put a spotlight on Health IT and interoperability?
The past 18 months have shown the resilience of our nation, our citizens and particularly our healthcare workers. But it has also shown the limitations our healthcare system has when it comes to enabling our clinicians with the information they need to not only provide patient care but to drive a coordinate response when faced with a national pandemic. When Cerner co-founded CommonWell eight years ago, we recognized that access to clinical data was a huge gap for our healthcare providers. Together with our fellow CommonWell members, we have made great strides in making health data more accessible to providers and individuals nationwide. However, it has not always been a simple path, and we know there are many gaps and data silos still to breakdown. One positive outcome of COVID is that our nation now has a shared understanding of the limitations to sharing and leveraging health data, not only on a national level but on a state and local level as well. With more knowledge, comes more action. And we believe the next year will see enormous progress across the industry to bridge these gaps. I know Cerner (and CommonWell!) are working hard every day to make seamless health data exchange a reality.
Sam Lambson, Vice President, Interoperability, Cerner
The pandemic has highlighted the need for an “all hands-on deck” approach, which goes beyond traditional settings of care and embraces the power of communities. Creating a health IT ecosystem that enables information to be available when and where it is needed is no longer a nice idea but an essential piece of the puzzle that will empower us to better address the biggest challenges we face. Fostering a system that fundamentally supports health equity has taken center stage and incorporating social determinants of health into the overall care of people is at the heart of the transformation we are undergoing. The pandemic did not bring about these challenges and opportunities, but it did highlight the need for us to accelerate progress.
Christina Caraballa, MBA, Director of Informatics, HIMSS
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an increase in the awareness, development, and maturation of each community’s health-related system of care. IT tools have been deployed to improve communication, care coordination, and public health-based analytics to improve provider and equipment resource allocation, as well as healthcare provider safety. Through the use of IT (mapping, targeted vaccination programs, etc.), communities have been better able to manage services provided and resources required to do so. EMS-hospital interoperability has been emphasized during the COVID-19 pandemic and must prioritized as part of the preparedness approach for the remainder of this pandemic and for future events.
Greg Howard, National Interoperability Sales, ZOLL Data Systems
During the pandemic, two needs emerged—remote access to care from the safety of home and emergency/critical care for infected patients needing hospitalization. A common denominator to both is access to patients’ medical record from all sources to ensure correct and timely treatment based on comprehensive data including histories, allergies, and conditions. With healthcare resources already stretched thin, providers having access to patient histories and information has meant the difference between life and death for many. The pandemic has further highlighted the need for interoperability, as healthcare providers having access to complete patient data, regardless of which EHR vendor it is stored with, has never been more important than it is now.
Anupam Kashyap, VP of Strategy & Operations, CureMD
What is one very clear change we have seen in interoperability as a result of the pandemic?
Only pilot projects and rapid adopters have provided insight into the use and potential of interoperability within EMS and community “Systems of Care.” There have been some positive changes as a result of the bidirectional exchange of timely, complete, and accurate information. IT-level mapping data has been used to target pandemic hot spots and to improve public health initiatives and responder safety. We’ve improved patient care and transportation decisions in healthcare resource-constrained communities, and we’ve gotten better at providing timely feedback on patient COVID-19 test results so that we can protect responders, their families, and bystanders and quarantine those who were exposed.
Greg Howard, National Interoperability Sales, ZOLL Data Systems
Throughout the pandemic, we have seen a dramatic and sustained growth in the telemedicine and remote patient monitoring sectors of the digital healthcare ecosystem. The pandemic has demonstrated the clear need for high-quality, on-demand care to be available to patients in the comfort and convenience of their own homes. The need for these non-traditional virtual provider care workflows to have access to a patient’s complete clinical history, order lab tests, and track patient health over time highlights the strong need for interoperability to expand and empower these emerging health innovators to deliver top of the line care. Health Gorilla and CommonWell are perfectly positioned to power these new workflows and support the evolving healthcare landscape.
Daniel Oppenheimer, Director of Marketing, Health Gorilla
Why or how is CommonWell even more relevant as we emerge from the pandemic?
We hear a lot of talk about the “new normal” as we slowly emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. One new normal I personally have seen is the increased mobility of populations. With many businesses moving to full-time or hybrid remote workplaces, people are relocating across the nation. Others are changing jobs or are moving to be closer to family. The waterfall effect of this mobility is the need to establish new health providers, underscoring the need for interoperability. Access to a patient’s health history could be paramount for a person’s treatment. With more than 22,000 provider sites connected nationwide, CommonWell helps participating individuals and providers access their health records, making moving and traveling even more feasible in this new normal.
Sam Lambson, Vice President, Interoperability, Cerner
CommonWell Health Alliance is creating a national fabric for health data exchange, enabling transparency between providers using various EHR technologies. With CommonWell, the biggest technical obstacle to widespread patient-record sharing will be removed, while improving the health of populations, reducing the cost of care, and improving the patient’s overall experience. I see this as the new norm, that is unlocking innovation and problem solving. Billions on very meaningful new data points from COVID related symptoms, treatments and its’ effectiveness, correlations to public health policies, to racial and demographic variations have been generated and now with vaccinations administered to millions of Americans, the opportunity to track, control and learn from the pandemic are even greater. Our teams are working tirelessly to democratize data for patients and researchers alike, enabling us to accelerate our mission to save lives with technological advancements at affordable prices.
Anupam Kashyap, VP of Strategy & Operations, CureMD
As the first CommonWell member to join the CommonWell Connector program in 2019, Health Gorilla has always been committed to the mission and necessity of CommonWell. CommonWell and its members ensure that health data is available to patients and providers regardless of where the patient receives care. COVID-19 has proven that in uncertain times, the interoperability of clinical data, from hospitalizations to vaccinations to COVID test results, is more essential than ever, particularly when a pandemic launches healthcare to the forefront of all aspects of society.
Daniel Oppenheimer, Director of Marketing, Health Gorilla