HIMSS: Standards needed to realize clinical information systems benefits

NEW ORLEANS—Meaningful Use (MU) is going to make a difference in healthcare in the U.S., predicted Marc Probst, CIO of Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, March 3 at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference. Success, however, is conditional on interoperability and standards.

A self-described MU skeptic, Probst detailed Intermountain’s progress toward the elusive goal of improved care. The state of Utah, where Intermountain handles approximately half of the medical care delivered, has gotten some aspects of healthcare right. It spends $3,972 per capita annually on healthcare, the lowest of any state in the U.S., and less than half of the $8,295 spent in Washington, D.C.

Intermountain has saved millions of dollars by reducing elective deliveries prior to 39 weeks to 2 percent from just under 30 percent to 2 percent. The shift reduces the number of C-sections as well as infants requiring ventilation and neonatal intensive care.

Probst credited the organization’s holistic approach, which uses technology and data to apply best practices to patient care, with its success. However, he emphasized the need for additional progress on outcomes such as obesity and anti-depressant prescriptions. Stage 3 begins to shift the focus to outcomes, he said.

“Do we get there with more features and functions,” he asked. The answer, he said, is for U.S. healthcare providers to become a learning healthcare system that shares knowledge and best practices.

“Interoperability is going to be key, and that requires us to put strong standards in place. The lack of standards [in the U.S.] is a problem,” he said, and issued a call for the U.S. to define, set and enforce core set of standards.

Probst concluded with a list of core standards: patient identification, security and access, algorithms for decision support, interfaces and terminology and query language. These standards will serve as the building block of a connected national infrastructure that will allow providers to study, identify and share best practices to improve health and contain costs, he summed.