More post-acute care providers are embracing the use of electronic health records in their facilities, according to a new survey by Black Book Market Research firm.
The survey, which featured responses from 1,640 long-term and post-acute care providers — found that 21% of them now have some EHR capabilities as of the fourth quarter of 2019. That’s an improvement from the 15% that made the same claim in 2016.
The findings, however, revealed that 49% of all post-acute care providers surveyed assess the state of their staff’s health information technology proficiency as extremely poor or nonexistent. In addition, providers are still struggling with exchanging health information with other providers. Long-term care administrators reported that 86% of their facilities are not exchanging information electronically with referring hospitals, physicians or home health providers. This aspect has seen zero improvement since the 2017 survey.
“The enormous disconnect between the post-acute world and the rest of the continuum is not correcting as hoped,” said Doug Brown, managing partner of Black Book Research. “Finding ways to improve communications between disparate acute-care EHRs and post-acute technology is a pressing problem for detached providers.”
Interoperability between hospitals and nursing homes has been a major challenge over the years. Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced an effort aimed at improving information sharing between SNFs and other providers.
“The solution to this problem will require the expansion of technology capabilities to connect physician practices, home health agencies, hospices, outpatient settings, skilled nursing facilities, rehabilitation centers, DME firms and hospitals,” Brown said.
From the January 2020 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
