How can interoperability help reduce something as specific as a patient fall? Read on to learn the latest insights from the HIMSS24 conference.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference 2024 was held this March in Orlando. The event saw professionals from around the globe come together to realize a new era of technology in the healthcare sector.
However, among the various discussion topics, one stood out from the rest.
Interoperability was a highlighted point of discussion, with a panel specifically dissecting how healthcare providers can share data between different systems to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and patient outcomes.
In this article, we’ll provide an overview of the panel’s findings and understand why interoperability is such a significant buzzword in 2024.
Why is Healthcare Interoperability Crucial?
Interoperability refers to the ability of two or more systems to exchange and share data. In healthcare, it gives providers and related health organizations access to valuable electronic health records, which can be used to provide more timely care.
Interoperability is crucial in the healthcare sector, as records often contain sensitive and personal information and cannot be accessed easily — even when patients are in immediate need. Interoperability allows providers and organizations to get a complete overview of the patient’s needs, make data-driven decisions, and coordinate better care.
The HIMSS24 Interoperability Pavilion
At the HIMSS24, a panel explored how interoperability has become an integral part of the future of health IT.
Six organizations — including Rauland, a vendor of advanced clinical communications and workflow systems, and Epic, one of the leading EHR’s — demonstrated how bringing together various hospital systems can enable connected care to the patient and, specifically, minimize fall risks.
The comprehensive network that came from this collaboration allowed real-time data sharing between healthcare devices and platforms — and fostered a more proactive environment to enable better healthcare.
In a Healthcare IT News interview, Michelle Allen, a division vice president at Rauland, spoke about the latest trends in interoperability.
Allen said major industry players were seeing “mainstay hospital elements, such as nurse call systems, act as a foundation for interoperability that allows clinicians to efficiently provide patient care.” This, Allen adds, helps close communication gaps.
Crucially, it also helps lower healthcare-induced infections and fall rates, which affect one in every ten patients. With interoperability, about 50% of these incidents could be avoidable, the report adds, quoting a 2024 study.
So, how does something like interoperability help prevent incidents?
Consider interoperability with nurse call systems, which, Allen says, improves communication, coordination, and access to patient information. In turn, the swift exchange of data can help doctors intervene on time, offer more personalized care, and carry out proactive monitoring — which reduces the likelihood of a patient falling.
So What Happens Now?
As we can see through this one example, interoperability is a crucial trend that will continue to influence the healthcare sector in 2024 and beyond.
No one understands this better than FormDr. Our service, which allows providers to easily send and receive HIPAA-compliant forms online, was created on the foundations of interoperability. FormDR has been continuously adding new features to the platform with various levels of integration. Questions on how to get started? Schedule an integration call today or reach out to your dedicated account manager.
