TEFCA is alive and well – and showing some enticing potential benefits
ASTP outlines initiatives that could show promise in using national networks to save money and increase efficiency in the industry.
Federal interoperability efforts are enticing the healthcare industry by showing glimpses of how data exchange can bring about demonstrable and desirable services to increase efficiency.
Recent announcements from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (ASTP, formerly known as ONC) show strategic efforts to provide examples of how interoperability can bring valuable benefits that will save money and reduce workloads – key drivers to enabling industry sustainability.
The announcements also demonstrate a vision for the future of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), which has an overall goal of establishing “a universal floor for interoperability across the country,” according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. That future will help grease the skids for advancing the recently announced CMS Interoperability Framework.
A real-world benefit
Earlier this week, ASTP announced plans to use TEFCA to assist federal agencies in determining benefits for those who might be eligible for disability benefits through the Social Security program.
While seemingly tangential to healthcare, improving data exchange to better handle disability claims can bring benefits to both consumers and federal agencies, according to a blog written by Steven Posnack and Sean Fry.
There’s often huge delays as disability claims are adjudicated – individuals applying for government benefits such as Social Security Disability Insurance can wait more than 200 days for an initial disability claim to be processed. One component of that delay is that the Social Security Administration (SSA) must locate applicants’ relevant medical records, request them from providers and then wait for the records.
Annually, this hunt-and-peck approach to approving applicants’ claims costs SSA $500 million annually to collect and create medical evidence, reports indicate. TEFCA, however, can change this because one of its authorized purposes for data exchange would enable the agency to automate the records request process. That will speed the process for government agencies and lessen the load on providers.
That’s where TEFCA’s Recognized Coordinating Entity is heading – it plans to release an update to TEFCA’s underlying technical specifications that will better support directed queries for medical records through the nation’s 10 Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs). Updates will help ensure that government benefits determination requests are efficiently routed, thus eliminating unnecessary queries across the network.
More possibilities lie ahead
Earlier this month, ASTP noted its work in pursuing data standards to enable interoperability to facilitate the exchange of laboratory data.
The implications for improving the status quo in this area are huge, because lab data is such an important component indicating patients’ conditions and a course of treatment. More importantly, getting this critical data in clinicians’ hands sooner – at the right time, at the right place and embedded in electronic workflows – can accelerate treatments for patients.
An ASTP blog notes that standards can have an enormous impact at each step of the workflow – from ordering lab tests to the point where results are distributed to patients, providers, public health agencies and others. While some standards efforts have sought to facilitate lab data exchange, “clinical laboratories still face obstacles with widespread adoption and consistent implementation of data standards,” ASTP officials note.
“Improving laboratory data interoperability is a complex task, requiring a multi-faceted approach and years of incremental improvements,” the blog noted, summarizing the results of a report it submitted.
The ASTP report identifies challenges to lab data exchange, and then looks at potential solutions, such as incentivizing and requiring labs to conform to common standards. The federal government also can apply monetary pressure, “conditioning the receipt of federal funding on the use of certified health IT,” it notes.
Here, too, TEFCA can come into play, and ASTP is suggesting that lab data standards can be promoted through participation in QHINs.
Because of the many potential benefits, federal agencies can lead the way in encouraging the use of lab data standards, ASTP concludes. It’s possible for laboratory interoperability to “become less burdensome and more efficient, and can help patients, clinicians and researchers receive timely access to information that can improve the quality of care.”
Fred Bazzoli is the Editor in Chief of Health Data Management.