A new study generated by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) shows that rehabilitation facilities, nursing homes and other long-term care providers are lagging in maintaining electronic health data for their patients. In fact, as per the federal report, they are lagging behind the acute-care facilities in generating health IT information.
The report indicates that the long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) facilities have to catch up to the other healthcare facilities' use of electronic health records and data exchange. The federal report was investigated by InformationWeek’s Healthcare reporter Ken Terry.
Consequently, according to a brief issued by ONC, the LTPACs have to make rapid progress on this front in order to meet the national agenda of improving the quality and lowering the cost of healthcare.
The federal report further highlights LTPAC providers’ non-eligibility for the Meaningful Use incentives, which have helped boost the use of electronic health records (HERs) among acute-care hospitals and ambulatory-care practices, wrote Terry.
As a result, the study found that the use of EHRs in the LTPAC sector has lagged behind. Furthermore, it shows that the systems in use are better suited to providing required reports to Medicare than to communicating with other providers' systems. Anyway, “the ability of LTPAC providers to exchange data with providers that are eligible for incentives is paramount to the continuity and quality of patient centered care," wrote Terry.
However, as per this report, the stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements provide an important step in this direction. It requires hospitals and eligible professionals to exchange clinical summaries with other providers at transitions of care, wrote Terry. Since many patients are discharged from hospitals to nursing homes, rehab facilities or other home care, it is likely that providers will try to exchange data with the LTPAC providers under the new requirements, reports InformationWeek.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
