The past year has seen as much evolution in the healthcare IT space as any, with numerous factors driving forward momentum in everything from cybersecurity to harnessing big data, achieving interoperability, and more.
Security
With healthcare becoming a target industry for data theft, a staggering number of high profile hacks have been revealed this year, with Anthem’s massive cyberattack leading headlines through February after an estimated 80 million current and former customers had their personal data stolen in a hack regarded as the largest healthcare breach in history.
Additional breaches made news through the year, including those at Excellus Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New York, and more at Premera, CareFirst, Concentra, Merit Health System (MS), UCLA Health, Akron Children's Hospital (Ohio), McClean Hospital (MA), and Healthfirst, a New York payer.
As a result of the growing threat and awareness of it, the healthcare cyber security market is predicted to hit $10.85B worldwide by 2022, a recent study estimates.
ICD-10
The long-awaited and much-anticipated transition to ICD-10 finally went down October 1. After the years of hype, preparation and opposition that continued until almost the last minute -- with the AMA publicly arguing against it as late as May -- the change was made and has since (at least for its first few months) disappeared from the limelight.
The reality set in this July when CMS announced a one-year, no-penalty grace period for incorrect ICD-10 claims, which eased immediate concerns and got players on the same page.
Following the transition, the industry has seen the fears around ICD-10's implementation have been unrealized -- and that’s a good thing, because ICD-11 is on the horizon for sometime around the 2020s (maybe), as Healthcare Dive previously reported.
At least for now, the issue is at rest. “The end result of years of work 2012-2015 is that many IT stakeholders think IT was distracted by projects that added little value,” wrote blogger John D. Halamka, MD, MS, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, chairman of the New England Healthcare Exchange Network and co-chair of the HIT Standards Committee. “The good news is that now that ICD-10 has passed, we can return control of IT priority setting to customers,” he said.
Interoperability
This holy grail of IT remains a nagging and elusive issue behind that of security.
“If you look at the industry, the greatest angst right now is around this question of interoperability,” Aurelia Boyer, senior vice president and CIO of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, told Becker’s Hospital Review. “I think how we tackle that going forward, and how we tackle opening these systems and make them more useful, is the thing we haven't done yet. It's not a failure, but it's where we have to really move.”
As the American Hospital Association concluded in an October report, hospitals have been attempting to overcome interoperability issues via interfaces and HIEs that equate to costly workarounds. It argues while standards are an important piece of the solution, they have not been specified sufficiently. "Clearly, much work remains, including steps by the federal government to support advances in interoperability," it states.
DirectTrust, the governance body for those engaged in directed exchange of electronic health information via the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN), says 2015 did see significant forward movement on the issue, with increased adoption by providers and greater interoperability between federal and state agencies with private-sector providers. It suggests 2016 will see more, and that, “We’ll also see, finally, patient and consumer participation in the use of electronic health information exchange,” Dr. David Kibbe, MD, MBA, president and CEO of Direct Trust, said in a prepared statement.
Meaningful Use
Meaningful Use has continued to be controversial in 2015. On the upside was the relaxing of some requirements for Stage 2, says Craig Richardville, senior vice president and CIO at Carolinas HealthCare System in Charlotte, N.C. “The government listened to us, making regulations more accommodating and realistic for us,” he told Becker’s Hospital Review. “Even though it was late in its release, it was favorable and consistent with what people expected.”
In October the Stage 3 final rule received mixed reactions, though much of the feedback was positive as a result of a focus on flexibility for meeting the program requirements and its inclusion of a 90-day reporting period for 2015.
However, detractors continue arguing against MU. The interoperability coalition Health IT Now sent a letter to Congress this month advocating reform of the program, and DirectTrust suggested MU should “face an early forced retirement.” It argues that in the absence of reform or program dissolution, worried providers may choose to face the penalties rather than allocate more resources to health IT that doesn’t otherwise add value.
Analytics
Perhaps one of the most positive aspects to health IT in 2015 was the advancement of analytics. BIDMC's Halamka points toward the system's success in utilizing data for care management, quality, benchmarking, and saving Medicare $50 million in 2015 alone.
"Meaningful Use did not tell us to do this," he says. "The Affordable Care Act told us to achieve an outcome and innovation happened because incentives were aligned to motivate us."
Jim Utterback, principal with Witt/Kieffer and the leader of the firm’s IT practice, sees the impact as widespread, suggesting hospitals have raced to implement a culture that embraces analytics and strategies to utilize them.
He suggests most health systems have come to a point where data management is already transforming their patients’ lives, or is poised to do so. “Navigating the process so that the entire organization is utilizing its data to the fullest, and securely, will be the challenge and triumph for health IT leadership in 2016.”