ONC Data Underscores Interoperability Challenges for Small, Rural Hospitals

The latest data brief from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) shows genuine progress among U.S. hospitals in the electronic sharing of patient records, as HIE Watch reported Thursday. But ONC’s July data brief also makes clear that whether a hospital is capable of electronic record sharing depends in large part on its size and location.

Fewer than one in five small hospitals (18 percent) were able to send, receive, find, and integrate summary of care records in 2015, versus 34 percent of medium and large hospitals. Rural hospitals fared even worse, with only 15 percent reporting success in all four data-sharing domains, compared to 34 percent of suburban and urban facilities. The data cited in the ONC brief comes from the American Hospital Association’s 2014-2015 Annual Survey Information Technology Supplement.

Small hospitals were most likely to have had success (80 percent) in sending summary of care records in 2015, followed by receiving (58 percent), finding (43 percent), and integrating (31 percent). Rural hospital success rates last year were almost identical for sending (79 percent), receiving (57 percent), and integrating (32 percent) summary of care records, though their rates for finding summary of care records (38 percent) were noticeably lower than those of both small hospitals and facilities in suburban and urban areas (63 percent)...