Every day when a patient goes to the drug store, within the course of a few questions and a few key strokes, a clerk or pharmacist can match that patient to the right electronic prescription and insurance records in their computer system.
It's accomplished with probabilistic matching, relying on five key data elements—the patient's first and last names, date of birth, address and sex. The same basic technique is used throughout the country to match patient-care summaries and full electronic health records in queries by providers to health information exchanges.
The systems used today can, when properly implemented, “achieve extraordinarily high” rates of accurate matching, said Lee Stevens, policy director for the state health information exchange program within HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
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Does the federally sponsored Direct messaging protocol pose an existential threat to vendors of health information exchange software? Time will tell, according to the author of a new market research report on health information exchanges.
Time will tell, according to the author of a new market research report on health information exchanges. But Direct is definitely producing anxiety among firms selling software that's designed to be used in more complex types of health information exchange—the long-sought “query-and-response” style of information swapping that has yet to achieve widespread adoption through the industry despite extended federal efforts.
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There has been significant progress in getting health information technology systems to talk to one another, according to a new study on interoperability by HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
The study, “Hospital Electronic Health Information Exchange Grew Substantially in 2008-12,” was published in the August issue of the policy journal Health Affairs. The report was written by five ONC staffers, including the lead author, Michael Furukawa, director of the ONC's Office of Economic Analysis, Evaluate and Modeling, and contributor Dr. Farzad Mostashari, the ONC chief.
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It comes as no surprise to many observers that regional health information exchanges are struggling financially.
Research published this week in Health Affairs concluded that “there is a substantial risk that many current efforts to promote health information exchange will fail.”
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