Interoperability has been a huge discussion not just in orthopedics, but healthcare as a whole. There are a lot of potential benefits to sharing healthcare data for both patients and providers, but getting there has been a challenge.
Paige Goodhew, a product marketer for Redox, was a guest on one of our podcast episodes. Redox is one of the solutions on the market for facilitating interoperability between different EHR and health information exchange systems. She explained the benefits of interoperability and why more patients are seeking out these technologies.
How Orthopedic Surgeons Benefit from Healthcare Data Collection
There are a couple of ways that orthopedic surgeons can benefit from interoperability. Interoperability can help to facilitate better care both on an individual basis and with how you approach care for all patients.
Accurate Patient Medical History
One way orthopedic surgeons benefit is being able to obtain an accurate medical history on each patient. If your practice is unable to easily share and obtain data from a patient’s other providers, you have to rely on the patient to remember everything when you take a medical history. This could include medication allergies, pre-existing conditions, and other issues that may affect the outcome of treatment.
Patients can be somewhat unreliable narrators, especially if they don’t remember something or don’t understand how their medical history is relevant to their treatment at your office. Without interoperability, if you aren’t able to get all the answers you need from patients, you could be missing out on key information that could improve outcomes or reduce the risk of complications for that patient.
Sharing Aggregate Data to Predict Outcomes
Interoperability can also help to facilitate the sharing of patient data in aggregate. This can potentially help your practice by making it easier to predict outcomes and mitigate risks in certain patient populations. By tracking patients’ recovery in both the immediate and long-term, you can also give your patients a more accurate idea of what to expect in recovery.
How Interoperability Benefits Your Patients
Interoperability helps you provide better care to your patients, but there are also other ways that patients benefit from interoperability.
Less Paperwork
Technology has permeated many aspects of our everyday lives. As such, today’s patients are very focused on convenience. Patients don’t understand why they have to keep filling out pages and pages of paperwork and answering the same questions over and over every time they go to the doctor, especially when there are solutions for securely sharing that data. If you can save your patients the time and effort of filling out paperwork, they will be much happier with their experience.
Greater Security When Sharing Information
Most patients are willing to share all of their healthcare data with all of their doctors, provided it can be done in a secure manner. It makes their lives easier in communicating with their doctors, and it makes it easier for you to provide excellent care. That is a win for everyone involved.
P3 Practice Marketing has helped orthopedic, spine, and neurosurgery practices market themselves online since 1998. Our focus is on helping practices expand their reach through increased patient recommendations and provider referrals.
