Interoperability gains can help address healthcare challenges like provider burnout, staffing shortages, and increasing costs. According to the Surescripts 2022 National Progress Report, more than 2 million healthcare providers exchanged patient clinical and benefit information greater than 21.7 billion times in 2022. The Surescripts Network Alliance is working to streamline how health information is exchanged between relevant stakeholders.
Main highlights from the National Progress Report
The Network Alliance expanded interoperability to give care managers the patient insights required to deliver optimum care. According to the Surescripts report the following interoperability gains were achieved in the last year:
- A greater number of physicians and healthcare organizations gained access to the Care Quality interoperability framework
- More than 1 billion clinical documents were exchanged.
- Clinicians exchanged more than 174 million HIPAA-compliant secure direct messages.
- 34 billion prescriptions were electronically filled, and 2.54 billion patient medication histories were electronically delivered or exchanged.
- Almost 700,000 prescribers leveraged Real-Time Prescription Benefit to save patients an average of $61 on prescriptions.
- The number of prescribers using the Surescripts Network raised by 8%.
Key benefits of interoperability
Nationwide interoperability can benefit clinicians, healthcare professionals, and health systems which can ultimately enhance patient safety and care.
- Greater interoperability in EHR systems and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Software can keep care teams better informed to make confident decisions.
- The specialty medication journey can become less painful.
- Through interoperable systems, healthcare professionals have access to complete and rich information.
- Physicians can address medication cost concerns.
The use of ePrescribing
Surescripts has been proactively working to enhance patient safety through electronic prescribing. E-Rx tools are powerful that can be used by prescribers and pharmacists to reduce the occurrence of errors making way for patient safety.
The 2022 Surescripts National Progress Report has revealed that 2.34 billion prescriptions have been filled electronically. The positive figure suggests that utilizing health IT systems can benefit healthcare by improving patient safety, and reducing costs.
Moving ahead
Interoperability across the Surescripts network can have a direct impact on patients’ treatment and lives. An interoperable environment can give clinicians the insight required to offer high-quality care and allow for seamless care coordination.
