{"id":40006,"date":"2024-06-06T10:15:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T17:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/efaxunifiedstg.wpengine.com\/?p=40006"},"modified":"2025-08-14T05:39:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T12:39:36","slug":"health-data-interoperability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.efax.com\/blog\/health-data-interoperability","title":{"rendered":"Connecting the Dots of Health Data Interoperability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Being able to access patient information at the point of care is essential to delivering accurate diagnoses and timely treatments. When making care decisions,&nbsp; relevant and up-to-date data within providers&#8217; workflow can facilitate collaboration and enhance communication across the continuum of care to drive better health outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet making data easily accessible between different systems is an ongoing challenge, particularly for healthcare\u2019s \u201cdigital have-nots\u201d that weren\u2019t eligible for electronic health record (EHR) meaningful use incentives. These organizations\u2014like post-acute care facilities, skilled nursing, home health, substance use disorder clinics, and assisted living facilities\u2014often deal with missing, incorrect, or improperly inputted data that can impede access to care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These providers need practical solutions to streamline electronic information exchange. The right solutions can level the playing field between digital haves and have-nots, enabling providers to seamlessly share information and make informed care decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading mb-3 pt-4\"><strong>The Digital Healthcare Divide<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Critical care decisions depend on smooth electronic information exchange because missing data or gaps in a patient\u2019s health history can have devastating consequences. While many hospitals have EHRs that can share structured data within their networks, many of the post-acute care settings in underserved markets where they may refer patients to can\u2019t exchange this advanced data\u2014often because they can\u2019t afford to implement an EHR with upfront costs and monthly subscriptions, and their margins are so thin they can\u2019t opt for the RCM model to pay a percentage of their revenue for an EHR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bridging this digital divide is crucial when managing patient referrals between facilities. In fact, 99% of hospitals surveyed said they\u2019re <a href=\"https:\/\/ehrintelligence.com\/news\/interoperability-a-key-factor-in-referral-decisions-for-post-acute-care\">more likely to send referrals<\/a> to post-acute care providers that can accept electronic orders. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But even when post-acute facilities have a way to process these referrals, the data they receive isn\u2019t always perfect. For instance, 76% of skilled nursing facilities say the data they receive is incomplete or unusable. More than half of them don\u2019t even receive referral information until <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamanetworkopen\/fullarticle\/2775075\">after the patient is in their care<\/a>. These data-exchange breakdowns can seriously disrupt the continuity of care, putting patients at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading mb-3 pt-4\"><strong>Overcoming Interoperability Hurdles<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If a sophisticated EHR is out of reach, \u201cdigital have-nots\u201d can instead leverage existing technologies to streamline information exchange and transform unstructured data without excessive costs or administrative burdens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, organizations that can\u2019t afford to implement an EHR can still share important information with complex systems through a simple, secure, cloud-based digital fax platform. Shifting from paper-based fax to a digital cloud fax solution can help centralize patient intake and referrals by compiling scanned documents into one dashboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More technologically advanced solutions can combine digital cloud fax with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities like natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) to transform faxes, handwritten notes, and other unstructured data into structured, shareable information. By using intelligent data extraction, these tools automatically pull information from unstructured documents and can then route the information directly to the receiving end, such as an EHR or prior authorization workflow reducing data entry. What makes this intelligence more reliable is the ability to have a source document and identify confidence levels for each of the data fields extracted.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Considering that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthit.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/page\/2021-03\/Hospital%20Use%20of%20Certified%20HIT_Interop%20v10_1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">seven in 10 hospitals<\/a> still rely on paper faxing to transfer patient records, the combination of digital fax with AI can bridge healthcare\u2019s digital divide by ensuring access to critical information regardless of its format. This can level the playing field to streamline data transfer to all different types of care settings with different levels of technology including those that treat our most vulnerable patients, enabling more collaborative care and, ultimately, better health outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, finding the right solution depends on a careful assessment of an organization\u2019s data sharing needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>For guidance on selecting the right data exchange solution, including a checklist for picking the perfect platform, <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/resources.efax.com\/hub\/white-paper-bridging-healthcares-digital-divide-practical-solutions-for-interoperable-data-exchange-and-health-equity\"><strong><em>download our latest whitepaper<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being able to access patient information at the point of care is essential to delivering accurate diagnoses and timely treatments. When making care decisions,&nbsp; relevant and up-to-date data within providers&#8217; workflow can facilitate collaboration and enhance communication across the continuum of care to drive better health outcomes. Yet making data easily accessible between different systems&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":40007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthcare-and-interoperability"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Health Data Interoperability: Overcoming Barriers for Care<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn about the challenges and solutions in health data interoperability that enable secure, timely information exchange between providers and systems.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.efax.com\/blog\/health-data-interoperability\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Health Data Interoperability: Overcoming Barriers for Care\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learn about the challenges and solutions in health data interoperability that enable secure, timely information exchange between providers and systems.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.efax.com\/blog\/health-data-interoperability\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"eFax\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/efaxonline\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-06-06T17:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-14T12:39:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" 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