5 Reasons You Need an HIE Now

Health information technology is full of promises—and ever-escalating costs. But there's one technology I would bet on right now. That's the technology to accurately, securely, and easily transfer health data information from one system to another.

In the switch from fee-for-service healthcare to accountable care, the old ways of developing healthcare systems aren't working. The escalating cost of care is due in no small part to overspending on hospital capacity, equipment that isn't always needed, over-engineered technology, short-sighted planning and bad hunches.

But there's one technology in particular I would bet on right now. That is the technology to accurately, securely, and easily transfer health data information from one system to another.

Let me give you the top five reasons why a healthcare information exchange should be your top information technology priority.

1. Compatibility: Legacy healthcare systems are not going away. Look around your hospital or medical practice. Before you is more than 30 years of investment in productivity-enhancing, safety-producing information technology. Some of it is easily replaceable, but built into the rest are some of the real assets of how your organization maintains its edge: a series of workflows, business processes, algorithms, hints, clues, roadmaps and best practices. But chances are, elements of these exist in different, often incompatible hardware and software systems. You cannot simply rip and replace entire systems, and when you do, the price is steep. Now and for the foreseeable future, you are going to need health information exchange technology to tie these pieces together.

2. Mergers and acquisitions: M&As will only accelerate your need for health information exchanges. Many of your organizations are already the product of the merger of two or more earlier systems. Such mergers, and any technology and business system purchases any system makes along the way, deal a particular deck of technology cards to your senior leadership, and winning the game means playing those cards as strategically as possible.

3. Interoperability: Playing your interoperability cards right gives you leverage with your vendor suppliers. Like any card game, you'll have to gamble at times. There may even be bluffing, especially as you negotiate with technology vendors. While you've been busy running your healthcare system, those vendors have been tirelessly working to develop and market technology to lock you in to those solutions. The more you know about how to move your data and business processes from one such system to another, the more leverage you will have in your vendor negotiations.

4. Standardization: You are balancing your need for industry standardization with your need to differentiate yourself among your local competitors. Market winners still manage to offer something special to customers. That means customizing technology to meet particular local needs. Sure, there will be standards—of care, of technology, and of quality reporting. But the best technology goes beyond all these things to delight those who use it.

Seek out innovative technology, but always be prepared to connect it to those systems that must communicate with each other. It is not easy. We have expectations that want these systems to be as simple to interoperate with each other as earlier technology paradigms: telephones, email, faxes. But with every wave of new technology, there is added complexity, so it becomes that much harder to make the interoperability of the newest technology as simple as earlier systems. We speak of "information dial tone"—if only it were that simple. But done right—think iPhone and iPad—it's a magical thing.

5. Portability: Patients and physicians will continue to have choices of where to go. The whole reason accountable care got as far as it did is that it preserves that choice. The challenge is to build the technology that makes that freedom work at a practical level – patients receive the care they desire, and physicians practice where and when they desire for job satisfaction. If your healthcare system makes it difficult for the information associated with patients or doctors to travel with them, you will become a less desirable destination.

To explore the very practical next steps you can take in healthcare information exchange, I'll be hosting a Webcast Monday, June 17. My guests will be HIE pioneers Linda A. Reed, RN, and David L. Miller. Reed is vice president of behavioral and integrative medicine and CIO of Atlantic Health System. She is also president of Jersey Health Connect, one of New Jersey's grant-funded health information exchange organizations. Miller is vice chancellor for information technology and CIO for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

I hope you can join us as we explore what's working, what isn't, and how you can make health information exchange a reality now. There's no time to waste.

WEBCAST: Integrate HIEs into Physician and Staff Workflows for Better Outcomes. June 17, 1:00-2:30pm ET.