With recently proposed disincentives for hospitals and health systems, organizations are under pressure to invest in the right data infrastructure strategy
McClean, VA—December 12, 2023—A new survey commissioned by Verato, the identity experts for healthcare, provides new insights into healthcare executives’ data management strategies and reveals the importance of Healthcare Master Data Management (hMDM) for closing critical gaps, enabling frictionless data exchange and meeting the requirements of the 21st Century Cures Act. Critically, while more than half of surveyed organizations (61%) have invested effort and resources into meeting the requirements of the Cures Act, only 36% report having the necessary comprehensive data quality programs in place to do so.
The 21st Century Cures Act set standards for the secure and frictionless exchange of data among payers, providers and consumers, including the establishment of an information-blocking rule that was finalized earlier this year. Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a new proposed rule to establish information blocking disincentives for hospitals and health systems. Under the rule, if the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) determines an eligible hospital has participated in information blocking, that organization may be limited for incentives through the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program, the Quality Payment Program and the Medicare Shared Savings Program. Only 41% of respondents report being able to completely comply with the info-blocking rules set forth in the Cures Act.
When asked about their readiness for specific provisions of the Cures Act, fewer than half of respondents said their organizations are fully compliant in these key areas:
- Sending electronic notifications of patient activity to other healthcare organizations (44%)
- Obtaining patient consent and authorization to share their data with external sources (46%)
- Maintaining technical infrastructure that ensures secure information exchange (43%)
- Sharing patient-level information with patients, other healthcare organizations and systems (43%)
- Receive patient-level information from other healthcare organizations and systems (43%)
“With the new proposed rule outlining disincentives, the pressure is on for hospitals and health systems to invest in the right data infrastructure,” says Clay Ritchey, CEO of Verato. “The information blocking rules in the 21st Century Cures Act will also significantly raise the amount of data that flows between organizations within the healthcare industry. If executives aren’t confident in their technical ability to handle this influx, we encourage them to start taking the necessary steps now.”
Other key findings include:
- The vast majority (98%) of healthcare executives expect an increase in data requests from other organizations, and 97% predict an increase in data coming into their organization from external sources.
- With this influx of data, 57% believe that patient data-matching errors will result in a healthcare crisis within the next five to 10 years.
- Two thirds of healthcare organizations are not completely confident in their data management infrastructure’s ability to protect the integrity of patient data.
- Nearly half (49%) report that their data is still stored in fragmented, siloed systems.
- Almost all (97%) see future negative impacts of poor data management as the amount of data coming into their organization increases—including poor patient outcomes, deterioration in care quality and more difficult billing.
- Most (89%) agree that an MDM/hMDM system is required to manage the increase in data captured in different systems.
The use of an hMDM system to properly identify patients and accurately match and master their data is a foundational element of health data exchange, yet it still presents a challenge for many organizations. According to AHIMA, the prevalence of duplicate records in most hospitals is upwards of 10%, but in health systems with multiple facilities that rate is closer to 20%.
Ritchey continues: “At Verato we believe that, beyond meeting compliance and avoiding disincentives, an hMDM is the bedrock of any organization’s data infrastructure. As the industry continues to embrace these interoperability requirements, it’s becoming increasingly important that healthcare organizations be able to confidently know who is who and provide complete, clean, trusted data that’s ready to share with consumers and other organizations.”
Survey Methodology
This survey, commissioned by Verato and conducted by Big Village, collected data from 197 executives from hospitals, health systems, and payers in the U.S. Survey respondents all have an active role in managing patient data at their respective organizations and were also involved in managing their organization’s patient data linkage, connections, storage, management and utilization by healthcare professionals.
To download the full report, click here.
About Verato
Verato enables digital engagement, clinical interoperability, cloud migration, and provider data integrity by solving the problem that drives everything else—knowing who is who. The Verato hMDM platform, the industry’s first purpose-built healthcare master data management solution, enables a complete and trusted 360-degree view of patients, consumers, members, providers, and communities. Over 80 of the most respected brands in healthcare rely on Verato to connect, identify, enrich, manage, and activate person and provider data across the complex digital health ecosystem with unprecedented accuracy, ease, and time-to-value. With a secure enterprise-wide single source of truth for identity, Verato ensures that you get identity right from the start. For more information, visit verato.com.
About Big Village
Big Village is a global marketing and media company. Driven by its diverse group of experts, Big Village provides a new way of working by bringing media, insights, and creative all under one roof. Big Village is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey with offices across North America. Find out more at https://big-village.com/.
Media Contact
Innsena for Verato
Erin Van Zomeren
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