With the advancement of technology in the digital era, many providers want more access to electronic referrals.
 
Many home health agencies plan to focus on closing the gap between what referring providers want and what agencies provide in terms of interoperability, according to the results of a survey from Brightree.
 
Home health agencies’ interoperability proposals to improve patient data management will be expanded by 30% for home health care and hospice organizations, according to the research.
 
About 34% of the 675 home health and hospice provider respondents believed the ability to receive electronic referrals is important, yet 64% of the 440 referring providers would find new home health partners if electronic referrals were accepted by that partner.
 
Research found 70% of home health and hospice providers report having experienced an increase in the number of referral sources requesting referral data be sent electronically over the past one to two years.
 
CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) will take measures to make sure healthcare providers and vendors undertake greater efforts to share patient data. Both CMS and ONC released rules interoperability rules this year.
 
Related link: Learn more about the research at http://bit.ly/2YEkX5R.