🤔Health Information Exchange standards

💡Health Information Exchange standards and mandates prevent digital health data siloes. Paper documents are physically constrained mediums of storing data which in turn create paper siloes—in healthcare, paper documents create data siloes. Digital data is no different than paper documents unless storage and exchange standards enable health data exchange across providers, organizations, and governments. Health information at the local level must be shared across neighboring municipalities and surface at both state and national levels to prevent digital siloes 1.  

💡HIE necessitates local, state, and national data sharing to maximize general public benefit. Some examples of healthcare data include clinical results, clinical summaries, and medication data. Lab results and immunization records shared across health networks create efficiencies, reduce costs, and provide increased healthcare quality. For example, shared radiology lab results stop duplicative procedures and minimize radiation exposure to patients 2. Overall, HIE cuts costs, eliminate duplicate efforts and enhance care quality.  

💡Unattractive healthcare incentive models prevent broader data sharing within the United States healthcare system. Adopting and using data standards and health data exchange systems is expensive and requires massive effort and collaboration. Lack of trust and a competitive market further worsens data sharing 3. Without the correct incentive models, healthcare system participants seek value creation and profitability elsewhere. Though the technology and standards are easy to develop, trust across competing organizations remains a significant challenge within the healthcare systems in the United States.  

💡Confidentiality, security, and control concerns contribute to the lack of healthcare data sharing. Though healthcare systems utilize advanced security mechanisms against unauthorized access or data modification, such capabilities do not protect against patient discrimination by insurance companies or unregulated monetization of health information by third parties. For example, health insurance providers may inappropriately leverage shared healthcare data to design health plans that discriminate against people-group 4. Health insurance providers may intentionally discriminate by increasing costs or leveraging loopholes to increase profitability. These additional challenges are not quickly resolved and are other factors that prevent healthcare data sharing. 

📝 References 

1. Schroeder, M. (2022, May 2). How hospitals are breaking down data silos to improve patient care. MedCity News; MedCity News. https://medcitynews.com/2022/05/how-hospitals-are-breaking-down-data-silos-to-improve-patient-care/ 

2. Leigh, S. (2019, July 10). RSNA – The Sequoia Project. The Sequoia Project. https://sequoiaproject.org/rsna/ 

3. Anastassia Gliadkovskaya. (2021, October 27). Most healthcare executives don’t trust their organization’s data, survey finds. Fierce Healthcare. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/majority-healthcare-executives-don-t-trust-their-organization-s-data-survey-finds#:~:text=Most%20healthcare%20executives%20don’t%20trust%20their%20organization’s%20data%2C%20survey%20finds,-By%20Anastassia%20Gliadkovskaya&text=Healthcare%20executives%20say%20they%20lack,decisions%2C%20a%20recent%20survey%20found. 

4. ‌ How Discrimination Impacts LGBTQ Healthcare. (2021, April 15). Stkate.edu. https://www.stkate.edu/academics/healthcare-degrees/lgbtq-health-discrimination