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We recently hosted our 4^th Executive Summit with our partners Allscripts and dbMotion. Thomas Jefferson University, UMASS Memorial Health Care and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center shared their visions for HIE along with their successes to date and then we had a lively roundtable discussion.

Our graphic recording artist captured discussion in this fabulous combination of words and pictures. Check out a visual summary of the roundtable discussion here (click to enlarge):

From the roundtable discussions, here are some of our key take aways:

Project Roadblocks:

Many of our forum participants talked about the roadblocks they had faced during their projects, including funding, expectations and resistance to change. Underlying many of the roadblocks was the need to build trust among a community of autonomous, independent community physicians who are reluctant to “bet the practice” on EMR technology.

Connecting Community Physicians:

To succeed with “on the fence” physicians and turn them into champions, your information sharing strategy should include an integrated patient record that focuses on patient-centric care and make sure physicians know how it relates to them. Instill and encourage a trusting culture to share records but also remain mindful of physicians’ continued autonomy and independence.

Measure Success:

Being able to measure – and demonstrate – success can go a long way towards encouraging information sharing. Start by defining clear roles and responsibilities and ensure there is a strong focus on training. Find early champions within the leadership and leverage their support.

State-wide Exchanges:

Since there is no single defined model for a successful state-wide health exchange, this topic spurred a lot of discussion. Participants talked a lot about sustainability of information exchange platforms and leveraging legacy systems to full advantage. Privacy concerns were also a hot topic, as were the varied rules regarding data security.

ARRA & Market Trends:

Obviously, ARRA and its impact on healthcare were also widely discussed. The group concluded that ARRA helped re-orient priorities for implementation, but it didn’t really change strategic fundamentals. Sharing will become more commoditized, and CPOE accelerated, but the underlying fundamental remains improved patient care.

Engaging Consumers:

Finally, how do we engage consumers? The group agreed that we should not allow patients to opt-out of better care, but there was a lot of debate around the extent of patient involvement, especially amid privacy concerns. Can we create a little EHR on a thumb drive that patients can carry to their various physicians? Or is that too insecure? Should we have public wifi kiosks in hospitals for patients? Regardless, as an industry we need to simplify the nomenclature and encourage transparency.

What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree?