UPDATED 09:00 EDT / JULY 20 2021

CLOUD

Google Cloud: New healthcare survey shows better interoperability improves patients’ lives  

Google Cloud and Harris Poll recently surveyed more than 300 physicians across the United States about their access to critical patient data to get a better picture of how doctors see technology making healthcare better through interoperability.

According to Joe Corkery, M.D., director of product management, healthcare and life sciences at Google Cloud, COVID-19 made it clear that data in healthcare took a lead role in understanding the pandemic. When data was inaccessible or difficult to pull together because it was kept in separate sources, it slowed down the process of providing care for patients.

“For decades, patient data has been stuck in silos, forcing physicians and caregivers to hunt across multiple sources for various bits of information to create a complete picture of a patient’s health,” Corkery said.

The results of the survey, announced today, were extremely positive for interoperability, he said, showing that physicians saw it as an overall net good, regardless of the technological challenges that might need to be overcome, given the effects on patients’ lives.

From the survey, the top four takeaways were that more communication would improve patient experiences, that it would provide more personalized care, that doctors felt “hamstrung” by inefficient reporting systems and that interoperability should be a priority.

When it comes to improving patient experiences and outcomes, 92% of physicians said they believed greater access to more sources of data would have a positive impact and 86% believed it would cut the time to diagnosis significantly. Doctors also believed having a better picture of patient data would give them better communication, help them recommend appropriate treatments, and make more accurate and quicker diagnoses.

“More than nine in 10 physicians say the ability to efficiently incorporate patient data into care plans is critical to care coordination, and the use of inefficient electronic health records systems has had a negative impact on their ability to deliver quality care,” said Corkery.

In fact, 90% of physicians spoken to said that if they could reduce the time they spend on healthcare records by 5% they would be able to provide more personalized care.

According to the survey, 63% of the doctors said their reporting system was time-consuming and they spent an average of four hours a day reviewing or updating patient records. Some, nearly 9%, felt that they spent almost 10 hours a day in the system updating records. A majority, 62%, also found that they needed to enter the same data across multiple systems.

Among those doctors surveyed, 94% were in favor of moving forward with increased data interoperability at their organizations. Of those who already have interoperability available at their organizations, 95% find it advantageous to patient care. And one in four said that has been extremely beneficial.

Finally, the survey concluded with 87% of the participants reporting that interoperability should be a priority. For healthcare organizations looking to make the journey to interoperability, there is the Google Cloud Healthcare Interoperability Readiness Program, which bundles together a bunch of tools designed to help bring patient data out of siloed systems.

Photo: Pixabay

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