Most Wired Report Finds Parallels Between Acute-Care and Ambulatory Organizations

ANN ARBOR, MI, Nov. 13, 2019 – Acute-care organizations and ambulatory facilities are following similar trajectories in their adoption of healthcare technologies, according to a report released by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME). Organizations that used advanced technologies the most also reported the most benefit.

The report, HealthCare’s Most Wired: National Trends 2019, was based on responses to CHIME’s 2019 Most Wired survey. CHIME conducts the survey annually to assess how effectively healthcare organizations apply core and advanced technologies into their clinical and business programs to improve health and care in their communities. This year CHIME offered an ambulatory survey in addition to a domestic and international hospital survey and introduced a performance excellence certification system using a Level 1-10 scale. The trends report focused on high-interest categories in healthcare that are impacted by technology.

“This report serves as a benchmark for the industry and a roadmap for healthcare organizations that strive to be best in class,” said Bill Spooner, chair of the Most Wired Governing Board. “Overall we saw improvement in the adoption of advanced technologies compared to the previous year and identified opportunities where healthcare organizations could target their resources.”

Fee-for-service continues to be the dominant payment model, with alternative payments accounting for 25% of Most Wired participants’ revenue. There was a modest increase in the adoption of most financial tools between 2018 and 2019, but two – real-time identification/tracking of value-based care conditions and distribution/management of bundled payments – saw upticks of 11 percentage points and 8 percentage points, respectively.

Healthcare organizations are making headway with their population health management efforts. On average 81% of respondents have adopted basic tools for care management although the adoption of advanced technologies is much lower. More than 80% use their EHR for various population health activities, and 63% include third-party tools. Those that use the EHR plus third-party tools, but no manual tools, report a stronger impact on patient, clinician, operational and financial outcomes.

Almost all respondents offer patient portals that include clinical information like test results and visit summaries, and about half include functionality like self-management tools for chronic conditions. The more patients used the portals, the greater was the impact on outcomes. Telehealth remains a challenge, though; two-thirds of organizations with telehealth services reported less than 10% of patients have used them.

Most organizations employ some components of a comprehensive security program but only about one third have adopted all 11 components. Nine of 10 organizations with a comprehensive security program and high adoption of security measures report a high positive overall impact.

Almost all participants have made the EHR and imaging data remotely accessible to clinicians yet less than half allow remote access to alerts and notifications for patients with chronic conditions. Most organizations have integrated at least one measured type of patient-monitoring data source, and those that integrate at least seven reported a 10% higher impact on outcomes. More organizations reported the ability to consume CCD data into their EHR as discrete data in 2019 compared with 2018. The ability to consume data from skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies also improved, but about one-third still lack that ability.

The ambulatory results mostly mirrored trends seen with acute-care organizations but there were a few differences, too. Compared with acute-care organizations, ambulatory facilities were slightly more likely to have adopted a mix of population health technologies and had higher adoption of portal functionalities overall. They also were more likely to offer telehealth services but patient use was low in this setting as well. More ambulatory facilities reported that their patient engagement tools had a high impact on outcomes.

Results from the trends report were presented Nov. 5 at the 2019 CHIME Fall CIO Forum. A digital version of the report can be downloaded for free here.

About CHIME

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs), chief innovation officers (CIOs), chief digital officers (CDOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 3,200 members in 56 countries and over 150 healthcare IT business partners and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and care in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.

Contact
Candace Stuart
Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME
734.665.0000
[email protected]