The Post-EHR World: What Does the Future Hold? – Part 1

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are in use by over 95 percent of eligible providers. EHRs and clinical data are seeing worldwide acceptance. But that comes with its own set of challenges too. Let’s take a look at what they have in store for the future.

The social determinants of health matter a lot. Although it’s true and sad that WHO data shows high US healthcare spending with resultant lousy health outcomes but it’s not the whole story. The US spends far less on social programs and services than most countries that beat their health outcomes, resulting in a health system that doubles as a social safety net, with all costs incurred by the health system. Social data and care based on that data will be a major shift in 2018 and most of that will probably happen outside the EHR, at least regarding data sources and storage.

The demand for data access by EHR customers is witnessing a rise this year. The biggest challenge is when integrating with an EHR is that the default answer from the customer is usually no. There is invariably friction to overcome and it is up to the health system to overcome this friction. This year we will see a lot less acceptance of that “no” and more push for EHRs to open up access to data. That data can be exposed via FHIR or HL7 v2.x or a proprietary API middle layer like that provided by Sansoro Health.