The Treatspace Referral Management Blog

Insight, ideas, and resources for high-performance referral management

It's Ridiculous That Health Records Systems Don't Talk To Each Other

Posted by Jeremy Guttman on 2/10/17 10:53 AM

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Former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden both care a great deal about digital health technology systems. Even when they had less than two weeks left in the White House, physicians' ability to share patient health records digitally was top of mind — and on the same day, too!

According to Politico’s Morning eHealth newsletter, it was “the first time since the gods called this newsletter into existence [that] President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden both talked on the same day about health IT”.

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Topics: Coordinated Care, Referral Network, Interoperability, HIT, Healthcare Data, Care Transitions

Come Together, Right Now, Over Referrals

Posted by Jeremy Guttman on 8/18/16 8:04 AM

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Hospitals and Health Networks Magazine recently championed the concept of primary care physicians and specialists working closely together as partners, rather than continuing disconnected referral relationships.

Partnering with Primary Care

H&HN’s article touts the increased efficiency and improved patient care in organizations with tightly aligned specialty and primary care partners.

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Topics: Referral Management, Interoperability, HIT, Referral Management Application

Using Healthcare Data to Distinguish Your Practice From Your Competitors

Posted by Jeremy Guttman on 8/2/16 5:05 PM

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Journalist Fareed Zakaria is certain that those who prevail in tomorrow’s health care arena are the ones who figure out how to use the troves of data at their fingertips to distinguish themselves from competitors.

“[W]hat you do with that data will probably be the key differentiator going forward,” Zakaria explains at a recent healthcare conference, the Health Forum and American Hospital Association Leadership Summit.

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Topics: Healthcare Analytics, Referral Management, HIT, Healthcare Data

As Healthcare Digitizes, Medical Referrals Fall Far Behind

Posted by Jeremy Guttman on 7/25/16 2:05 PM

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Entirely paper-based healthcare is going the way of the dodo bird. Since 2008, the number of office-based physicians who have adopted electronic healthcare records (EHRs) has doubled from 40% to over 80%. In fact, the number of physicians using EHRs has actually quadrupled in the past 12 years.

Poorly handwritten prescriptions are no longer a problem for the 70% of physicians who now prescribe medications for their patients electronically. The advancement of e-prescribing has led to a reduction in medical errors and prevents fraud, such as opioid abuse.

In addition, telehealth is booming, robotic surgery is more common, and robots are even roaming the hallways of hospitals to deliver food and transport trash.

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Topics: Referral Network, Closed-Loop Referral Management, Closed-Loop Referrals, HIT