Mastering Data Management

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How can you improve communication among healthcare providers and HIEs?Initiate's Deanna Nole asks the questions

Health information exchange (HIE) initiatives are demanding efficient and accurate communication with providers in and between acute care and ambulatory environments. But not all providers are created equal when it comes to communicating.

For example, employed physicians have access to different systems than affiliated referring physicians.  Each provider will have unique communication preferences and desired methods for receiving information about their patients too - each provider needs this information in near real time even when you are faxing it.

So how do you know you have it right?  How do you capture and maintain contact and preference information and keep it up to date to drive efficient health information exchange?

Lately I have been working on this challenge of maintaining a master index of provider contact information for different types of providers. I’m also defining how that data is maintained and used throughout the health system, and evaluating where having the wrong information can impact patient care or provider satisfaction.

This brings about the following questions:

1) Where does out-of-date, incomplete or duplicate provider data impact patient care or satisfaction today?

Not having the most up-to-date information when creating a referral for a patient can cause a delay in the patient receiving follow-up care. It could also delay getting the right patient history to the right location in a format the physician can process.

2) How does the provider data that is maintained for employed physicians/clinicians differ from that for affiliated/independent provider?

Employed clinicians are in internal credentialing and HR systems, and much more information is needed to support those resources than an affiliated provider. Additionally, employed clinicians have access to a number of internal systems that may not be appropriate to open up to those who primarily submit referrals.

3) What additional information about providers would be valuable to have to determine which added services could make your health system easier to do business with?

Understanding patients treated by providers across both acute and ambulatory settings can be a data nightmare. Several important data points are necessary, including:

• Which practice or practices a physician is affiliated with
• A physician’s availability (days and times) at each specific office
• The methods and systems used by each practice to capture key patient data including history, lab results, radiology images and CCDs
• Whether a practice uses an EMR or is paper-based

All these details are essential to ensuring that the right information gets to the right location in the right format to support patient care.

I’ll soon be attending a focus group to get to the bottom of these challenges and discuss how current provider systems can interact to enable health systems to be more efficient. What additional questions would you ask? I look forward to sharing the results and hearing your comments!