Data Exchange
In study published in Health Affairs (per a Medical Economics blurb), 78% of office based docs have some type of EMR/EHR. Hooray! That being said, only 14% of doctors can share this info with other doctors outside their office. Whoops. It turns out the data exchange part was all but forgotten. Not worry. Each doctor can spend thousands upon thousands to maybe upgrade their EMR so it communicates with the hospital. Maybe.
“only 14% of doctors can share this info with other doctors outside their office”
And, as we’ve learned from Dallas, sometimes doctors and nurses in the same ER on the same EMR can’t share info.
F-it. I still do the letter of introduction of referred patients to the specialty folks. I generally receive a stream of
conscientiousness letter back I find more helpful than the 20 page computer generated disclaimer garbage currently being generated.
And the hurdle Meaningful Usefulness #2, or whatever, REQUIRES that you communicate with other providers – no matter what the limitation of the software.
This reminds me of:
Step 1. Jump out a one-story window.
Step 2. Jump out a two-story window.
Steps 3-10 are under development.