Implementing a health care information exchange would save ~$87 billion
Center for Information Technology Leadership
February 23, 2004
New Findings Show that Investment in Standardized Healthcare Information Exchange Would Deliver $87 billion in Annual Healthcare Savings
“Our research shows conclusively that there are strong financial reasons for the nation to invest in standardized healthcare information exchange,” said Blackford Middleton, MD, Chairman of CITL. “Standardized information exchange would save the nation $86.8 billion each year. Clearly, we must accelerate efforts to focus national policy discussions on implementing standardized healthcare information exchange and interoperability.”
Dr. Middleton announced the results of CITL’s research into the value of Healthcare Information Exchange and Interoperability (HIEI) at the HIMSS
Annual Conference, February 23, in Orlando, Fla. The study considered four
levels of interoperability, but the conclusions focused on the financial value of moving to nonstandardized, machine-organizable data and standardized, machine-interpretable data. CITL found that the value of standardized HIEI far exceeds the value of non-standardized HIEI. The research concludes that it is not cost effective to invest in non-standardized HIEI.
HIEI generates savings by enabling automated sharing of data among the computers of participants involved in clinical treatment. Currently, 90% of data is shared manually via telephone, fax, and mail, and one study found that pertinent patient data were unavailable in 81% of patient visits to an outpatient clinic.
CITL calculated that savings would come from fewer tests and improved efficiency. CITL projected less redundancy and decreased labor costs from reduced administrative tasks. The results should be viewed as conservative estimates of the value of HIEI, since CITL considered only transactions that involve providers. In addition, it assumed that all providers would purchase new systems. Overall, CITL believes that actual financial benefits would be even higher than its projections.
http://www.citl.org/news/HIEI_Findings.pdf
Comment: One of the advantages of a single, universal system of funding health care is that it would be simpler and less costly to include an integrated information technology system. Although the benefits are not disputed there has been some concern about the costs of such a system. This report allays those fears.
The precise amount of savings would vary under different specific models, but the savings would be real if the health care information exchange and interoperability (HIEI) is standardized. In contrast, our current non-standardized approach is clearly not cost effective.
A single, universal program of social insurance is the ideal framework within which to establish a standardized HIEI. Let’s go to the drawing boards now.