Hospitals are improving their interoperability and doing a better job of exchanging health data electronically, according to a review by the federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).
According to a new ONC report,
- In 2021, more than 6 in 10 hospitals engaged in key aspects of electronically sharing health information (send, receive, query) and integrating of summary of care records into EHRs, a 51 percent increase since 2017.
- Availability and usage of electronic health information received from outside sources at the point of care significantly increased over the last four years, reaching 62 and 71 percent, respectively, in 2021.
- Health Information Service Providers (HISPs) and HIEs were the most common methods used for electronic exchange among hospitals.
- About three-quarters of hospitals participate in health information exchange organizations (HIEs) and about 35 percent participate in both HIEs and national networks.
- In 2021, 39 percent of hospitals reported participating in more than one of four measured national networks.
- Nearly 90 percent of hospitals upgraded their EHRs to 2015 Edition through 2021 and 74 percent of hospitals adopted bulk data export technology.
Learn more about progress in the federal government’s quest for health data interoperability in the ONC data brief “Interoperability and Methods of Exchange among Hospitals in 2021.”