New research data from KLAS suggests that while providers generally feel comfortable with their preparations for complying with new information blocking rules, they’re not sure their efforts will be much help in winning their ongoing interoperability battles.
The new rules from ONC went into effect April 5 of this year, arising from requirements imposed by the 21st Century Cures Act. To see how providers were coping with these requirements, KLAS reached out to 42 provider organizations and asked them about their attitudes and expectations around complying with the rules.
When asked about their readiness to comply with information blocking requirements, 21% of respondents said they were very prepared, 50% prepared, 17% neutral, 7% unprepared and 5% very unprepared.
Among those who felt prepared, their reasons included that they felt they’d had sufficient time and resources to plan in advance, and also, had resources in place and were ready to go. Another subset of respondents said they are preparing now and will be cutting it close.
Meanwhile, those who said they weren’t prepared said that either they were still trying to understand the requirements or hadn’t given much thought to the changeover.
When asked what the most difficult aspects were of nailing down compliance with information blocking requirements, 46% said understanding what is required was key; 20% said getting technology compliant was an issue; 15% said making sure that their data governance program was compliant and 19% had other concerns.
In an effort to address whatever issues might still remain, many respondents are building on their existing infrastructure. In theory, one might expect these providers to hire on professional services firms or solve their problems with new technologies. However, that’s not how things are playing out.
Actually, when providers were asked what vendors or solutions outside of their existing EMR helped them prepare to meet the new requirements, virtually all organizations said that they were replacing third-party solutions with added modules from their existing enterprise EMR vendor.
All that being said, respondents don’t seem to be too optimistic about the impact of these efforts.
When asked whether information blocking rules would actually improve industry interoperability, respondents were uncertain. Even organizations that are confident in both their own and their EMR vendor’s preparations weren’t sure their efforts would reduce barriers to interoperability, KLAS concluded.
