By SURESCRIPTS

Health information exchange. Connectivity. Interoperability. For the health IT crowd, these words have become staples in our vocabulary. Data exchange and accessibility are critical to improving care delivery and increasing efficiency, especially when patients move from one provider to another.

Patients’ digital expectations are growing too, their health records must be easy to share with other care providers in a secure manner. To keep up with industry demands, regulations and the pace of innovation, the entire healthcare ecosystem must continue to take steps forward in their respective – and collective – interconnectivity journeys.

According to a recent article from Health Affairs, 78 percent of office-based physicians reported adopting some form of EHR system in 2013, however only 14 percent electronically shared data with care providers or hospitals outside their own organization, which is one of the most critical pieces of the interoperability puzzle. The secure transfer of information between each stakeholder group is no longer nice to have, but a necessity – not only for the assurance of high quality care, but also for the improvement of healthcare overall.

But the journey isn’t easy, the challenges are great, and the questions are plentiful. How are hospitals going beyond compliance to take Meaningful Use from a regulation to a framework for connected success? How can you achieve seamless connectivity between disparate entities? How can tracking immunizations drive down costs for patients, providers and pharmacies, while improving population health?

To tackle these questions and more, please join Surescripts and a panel of experts – from Kaiser Permanente, Mt. Sinai and Walgreens – tomorrow September 23rd at the Health 2.0 fall conference, as we address “How a Connected Health Infrastructure and Data-Driven Solutions are Improving Quality, and Your Bottom Line.” Be sure to follow us @Surescripts on Twitter!