5 key takeaways from the HIMSS State of Interoperability and Connected Care report
From data integration challenges to the top use cases for AI, here are some intriguing findings from HIMSS Market Insights.
From data integration challenges to the top use cases for AI, here are some intriguing findings from HIMSS Market Insights.
HIMSS Market Insights annually surveys clinicians and healthcare leaders across the U.S. to understand their current obstacles and progress in advancing their interoperability goals.
The latest results from the State of Interoperability and Connected Care report show that the top goals of healthcare leaders often are at odds with their current reality.
Nearly 60% of the clinicians and healthcare professionals surveyed by HIMSS Market Insights said that improving patient outcomes was their top priority. Yet, half of the respondents believe their organization isn’t very effective at meeting its top goals.
Here are five key takeaways from the HIMSS report.
When asked for their organization’s most significant obstacle to improving interoperability and delivering a more connected care experience, 42% cited integrating data from multiple electronic health record (EHR) systems. Integrating new solutions into existing workflows was a close second, at 41%, followed by managing unstructured data and content (39%).
Larger organizations — systems with 500-plus hospital beds — are almost twice as likely to face challenges when integrating data from multiple EHR systems (50%, compared to 26% of small to midsized organizations). Larger organizations are also almost twice as likely to face obstacles when integrating new solutions with existing systems (49%, compared to 26% of small to midsized health systems).
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Healthcare leaders who have at least half of their unstructured data available at the point of care
Leaders who have at least 40% of their unstructured data available
Leaders who have less than 30% of their unstructured data available
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Asked what steps their organization is taking or likely to take to improve interoperability and deliver a more connected care experience, 85% cited digital collaboration tools. Nearly a third of the organizations (28%) said they are investigating the use of collaboration tools, while 34% said they are planning to use such tools and 23% are currently using or piloting the use of the tools.
There is also a growing number of organizations that are looking to exchange data with key stakeholders outside their health system (31% are planning to, and 20% said they are investigating the option). The share of health systems that are exploring the development of standardized methods of identifying patients (30% investigating and 26% planning) is also increasing.
Larger organizations are significantly more likely to be using or piloting the integration of point-of-care images and workflows (45%, compared to just 18% of small to midsized health systems). There were also significant gaps between large and small/midsized organizations when it comes to leveraging natural language processing solutions (34% vs. 13%), robotic process automation (34% vs. 5%) and automating the classification of unstructured data (20% vs. 5%).
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Organizations said they plan to utilize AI at some point for appointment scheduling (57%), personalized treatment plans (56%), image reconstruction (55%), and billing and coding (55%).
Within the next two years, the top priorities for AI are appointment scheduling (44%), remote monitoring (39%), case management (39%) and personalized treatment plans (38%).
Among the current uses of AI, billing and coding (27%) leads the way, followed by medical records management (26%), natural language processing (25%), appointment scheduling (24%), and chatbots and virtual assistants (24%).
However, more than a third of the respondents said they have no plans to leverage AI for drug discovery (38%) and clinical trials (35%).
> Get the infographic | Key insights and top challenges from HIMSS
Healthcare leaders who plan to leverage AI for appointment scheduling
Leaders who plan to utilize AI for personalized treatment plans
Leaders who plan to leverage AI for image reconstruction
The top priorities of health leaders remained the same: improving patient outcomes (59%) and optimizing clinical workflows and performance (47%).
Maximizing the value of EHR investments tied improving patient satisfaction and meeting regulatory compliance requirements for third at 37%. But the latter two each topped 40% in the 2024 HIMSS survey. In contrast, the 37% figure for maximizing the value of EHR investments was up sharply from 2024 (28%, ninth) and 2023 (12th, 22%).
The increasing importance of getting the most out of tech investments was reflected in another survey question. Asked which results they’ve noticed from utilizing efficient technologies to improve interoperability, 77% said operational efficiency. That was way up from 56% in 2023 and 65% in 2024.
The ability to receive data from another organization in real time was second at 60% — up from 42% in 2024.
> Learn more | The enterprise-wide value of Hyland Healthcare
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