Report: More data hurdles to overcome before wider EHR adoption
A defined framework for secondary data will need to be developed in order for more organizations to deploy health IT systems, according to a survey conducted between May and June and published by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 earmarked billions of dollars to go to health IT. With this increased funding, the industry will see an acceleration of IT implementation and the documentation and collection of secondary data.
With an increased number of data produced, secondary data may be submitted and used in future collaborations, incentives or business opportunities. However, some barriers still exist for providers, payors and pharmaceutical companies before such a framework can be defined.
“Secondary use of data is defined as clinical, financial, administrative and self-reported data which is aggregated, analyzed and presented in a concise, actionable format for the purpose of identifying trends, predicting outcomes, and influencing patient care, drug development and therapy choices,” according to the firm.
Managing and deciphering the secondary data poses an issue as more EHR systems are expected to be used, PricewaterhouseCoopers said. A majority of survey participants cited data problems involving transparency, access, quality and management. In addition, privacy and public relations ramifications of secondary data were a source of common concern for respondents.
More than 110 pharmaceutical and life science companies responded to survey where 90 percent of the pharmaceutical companies reported limited or no access to clinical informatics in EHRs.
However, implementation rates of EHRs among the 700 online respondents were resoundingly low.
According to the findings, 44 percents of the respondents fully implemented basic reports/reports viewing with 9 percent using pre-implementation. The report found that 20 percent fully implemented computerized provider order entries with 37 percent using pre-implementation; 19 percent fully implemented medication administration/barcoding; 15 percent fully implemented clinical decision support/charting; 20 percent fully implemented data warehousing; and 20 percent have fully implemented patient clinical documentation.
Yet access to EHRs won’t solve data management or usefulness. “We assume that every megabyte…that we generate in the healthcare industry to be aggregated and reported in a useful way,” said Allen Korn, MD, chief medical officer and senior vice president for clinical affairs for BlueCross BlueShield Association. “If we just abandon this hundred gazillion gigabyte project, and look at the handful of things that are truly meaningful and useful, like they did at MasterCard 25 years ago--the most important thing is to make the card work when you’re at the store--we’d make a lot more progress.”
As the industry attempts to develop a unified framework for the use of secondary data, a consensus of the survey respondents provided the following principles:
In addition, there was general agreement among the survey participants that the government should create new incentives for providers to collect, report and use data.
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 earmarked billions of dollars to go to health IT. With this increased funding, the industry will see an acceleration of IT implementation and the documentation and collection of secondary data.
With an increased number of data produced, secondary data may be submitted and used in future collaborations, incentives or business opportunities. However, some barriers still exist for providers, payors and pharmaceutical companies before such a framework can be defined.
“Secondary use of data is defined as clinical, financial, administrative and self-reported data which is aggregated, analyzed and presented in a concise, actionable format for the purpose of identifying trends, predicting outcomes, and influencing patient care, drug development and therapy choices,” according to the firm.
Managing and deciphering the secondary data poses an issue as more EHR systems are expected to be used, PricewaterhouseCoopers said. A majority of survey participants cited data problems involving transparency, access, quality and management. In addition, privacy and public relations ramifications of secondary data were a source of common concern for respondents.
More than 110 pharmaceutical and life science companies responded to survey where 90 percent of the pharmaceutical companies reported limited or no access to clinical informatics in EHRs.
However, implementation rates of EHRs among the 700 online respondents were resoundingly low.
According to the findings, 44 percents of the respondents fully implemented basic reports/reports viewing with 9 percent using pre-implementation. The report found that 20 percent fully implemented computerized provider order entries with 37 percent using pre-implementation; 19 percent fully implemented medication administration/barcoding; 15 percent fully implemented clinical decision support/charting; 20 percent fully implemented data warehousing; and 20 percent have fully implemented patient clinical documentation.
Yet access to EHRs won’t solve data management or usefulness. “We assume that every megabyte…that we generate in the healthcare industry to be aggregated and reported in a useful way,” said Allen Korn, MD, chief medical officer and senior vice president for clinical affairs for BlueCross BlueShield Association. “If we just abandon this hundred gazillion gigabyte project, and look at the handful of things that are truly meaningful and useful, like they did at MasterCard 25 years ago--the most important thing is to make the card work when you’re at the store--we’d make a lot more progress.”
As the industry attempts to develop a unified framework for the use of secondary data, a consensus of the survey respondents provided the following principles:
- The patient should be the focus of the data with his/her protection in mind.
- Data must be transparent and overseen by honest brokers or stewards to establishment and maintain trust.
- The focus of data should be shifted toward outcomes and quality; not transactions. This will require a new data architecture.
- Initially, meaningful data, such as a minimal set of high-use, high-value subsets of data should be collected, piloted and deployed.
In addition, there was general agreement among the survey participants that the government should create new incentives for providers to collect, report and use data.