“There clearly is a lot more emphasis on data sharing, and the importance of it,” said Probst. “Certainly, Direct, eHealth Exchange, and Care

Connectivity Consortium type efforts have increased the ability to exchange standard CCD/CDA data and this is helping. Also, proprietary networks like state exchanges and vendor-based solutions such as Epic and Cerner are also helping data sharing.”

For analytics, a beginning
The relative lack of EHRs in 2003 essentially ruled out not just access to records, but efforts to analyze large sets of patient data to detect trends and uncover metadata. As the national health network continues to build out, we’re finally getting to a point where healthcare may be able to truly leverage data analytics in a meaningful way.

“Big data is contingent upon having big data,” said Brailer. “Not just big, but clean data, useful data, validated data, timely data -- and that’s just coming together now.”

While he notes that “big data is touching the insurance industry and is in big pharma,” Brailer said he doesn’t “see it happening much with providers yet. But we know how that movie will end, and there’s going to be a big movement.”
First, though, privacy concerns must be addressed.

“Many of our members still don’t want to have their data stored in a repository,” said Stephens. “They think they can’t get back into it and fix it if they find a problem. I think it will happen, but until ACOs (accountable care organizations) become very pervasive, data analytics is still a closed system.”

Probst agrees that “the use of analytics continues to grow, but it is still early.”

“An electronic data warehouse, or other analytic engine, is simply the beginning and frankly, the easy part,” he said. “The bigger challenge is creating the environment, organization and talents for data analytics.”

Analytics, he added, “needs to be culturally understood and accepted – and this comes through top-down leadership and example. There is still a lot of runway in front of our industry as it relates to effective use of analytics.”
   
Medical made mobile
Among the biggest technological changes for caregivers over the past decade has been the rapid proliferation of mobile devices – particularly the introduction of Apple’s iPad in 2010. While medical professionals have been using laptops for years, tablets took medical mobility to another level by delivering critical medical data to caregivers in the field.

“The ability to get information much closer to the patients and providers has helped in improving care processes and it has saved lives,” said Probst. “Business executives have been able to do their jobs from just about any location with their cell-phone and laptops. In medicine, now clinical care givers and other support professionals have the same ability to get data where they are and quickly assist in care giving, even if they are great distances away.”

While Android devices are appearing in more caregivers’ hands, the iPad remains the tablet of choice for the majority of medical professionals. Among the specific uses of the iPad that are helping to revolutionize patient care:

• Accessing and input patient information at the point of care;
• Providing a familiar digital portal to patients for submitting medical and personal information, as well as providing feedback on quality of care;
• Providing information to visiting home healthcare workers with tablets;
• Enabling wireless collection of data from home medical monitoring devices.

“Physicians are able to get into EHRs from anywhere now, and I think it’s making things far more efficient,” said Stephens. “Home health is going to become more of a center of excellence because of the devices we’ll have in patients’ homes that can communicate via wi-fi connections.”
   
The next mountain
The state of healthcare information technology has improved dramatically over the past decade as the majority of patient records have entered increasingly connected electronic systems. Probst, while optimistic about the future, isn’t satisfied with the present.

“In the end, the basic requirements for strong national standards will win the day and data liquidity will be possible,” he said. “Until then, we are where we are – which is far inferior to where we could and should be.”

“There still needs to be a push to get the rest of the doctors’ offices done, but we’re way past the tipping point,” said Brailer. “Doctors don’t want to do business with other doctors who don’t have electronic referrals, they can’t communicate back electronically.”

Summing up the changes in healthcare IT over the past decade, Brailer said, “We had two goals. To get these information tools in place, and then to tie them all together into one cohesive set of information, and that has not been done. So we don’t have the integrated lifetime personal record we sought to have, and that’s the next big mountain to climb.”