Healthcare organizations can use agile connected apps to supplement their electronic health records, as well as using HIE data to supplement internal clinical data, all while improving clinical workflows and improving data exchange and interoperability.

This was the topic of a HIMSS21 Digital discussion between Harm Scherpbier, CMIO for HealthShare Exchange, and Subha Airan-Javia, founder and CEO of TrekIT Health, who pointed out the ways in which integrated health data exchanges can improve quality of care.

"The reality is that so many errors are related to communication failures," Airan-Javia said, noting they cost health systems more than $110 billion per year.  "We need a shared workspace where we can work together across specialties and disciplines to do things like flag critical status, share team-based tasks and see what everyone is working on at the same time."

Team and task management applications, which provide shared task lists, will provide patient status updates in real time, for example.

"Another aspect of driving improved clinical care is providing access to real time, relevant data at the point of care," she added. "By bringing today data from multiple different sources, HIEs can drive a level of informed decision making that we can't do otherwise."

Scherpbier noted having access to HIEs will better enable coordinated care, improve quality and outcomes, and lower costs—which all contributes to providing a better patient experience.

"Apps connected to HIEs can help bridge organizational data gaps, while FHIR-connected apps can bridge workflow gaps and data gaps," he said. "There are simply limitations to single vendor implementations, which healthcare organizations today prefer when it comes to EHRs."

Care coordination and patient handoffs are where some of the most significant workflow gaps can occur.

From Scherpbier's perspective, the aim is to bridge those gaps with HIEs, all while improving teamwork and communication and maintaining a single record and single point of truth.

Airan-Javia agreed, noting agile technologies that are structured around how care is delivered, and which offer flexibility, will allow for changes in care over time, making it imperative that care providers have care applications that can adjust to that.

"It's really about access to information that's updated in real time, in a way that's easily accessible," she said. "Our ability to do smart, on-FHIR applications can really help drive what we can do with technology even further in healthcare."