The Evidence

Patient Empowerment and Consumer Rights

"While the United States has made substantial progress in digitizing health records, most patients are still unable to easily transfer their complete medical records to a new provider, share their records securely with other family members or caregivers, or donate their medical data for research."¹

• ¹ The Future of Health Data Sharing: Giving Consumers Private and Portable Access to Their Own Medical Records. Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 2016.

• Improving Care: Priorities to Improve Electronic Health Record Usability. American Medical Association, 2014.

• What Do Patients Think About Team-Based Care? The Doctor Weighs In, 2016.

• Why Health Data Ownership is a 'Civil Right'. FierceHealthcare, 2015.

• Who Owns Medical Records: 50 State Comparison. George Washington University’s Hirsh Health Law and Policy Program, 2015.

• 2020 Topics and Objectives: Health Communication and Health Information Technology. Healthy People 2020, 2016.

• Achieving Health Equity: Closing The Gaps In Health Care Disparities, Interventions, And Research. Health Affairs, 2016.

Economics and Financial Aspects of Interoperability

"Unsustainable and ever-escalating U.S. health care costs, an estimated $700 billion in wasteful spending, and the emerging centricity of medical information [...] prompt investigation into the value of creating functional medical device interoperability – the ability for medical devices to exchange information with each other and with patient data repositories such as electronic health records."²

• ² The Value of Medical Device Interoperability. West Health Institute, 2013.

• Can Electronic Medical Record Systems Transform Health Care? Potential Health Benefits, Savings, And Costs. Health Affairs, 2005.

• The Value Of Health Care Information Exchange And Interoperability. Health Affairs, 2005.

• An Updated Systematic Review with a Focus on Meaningful Use Functionalities. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2014.

• Health Policy Brief: Reducing Waste in Health Care. Health Affairs, 2012.

• Reducing and Preventing Adverse Drug Events To Decrease Hospital Costs. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2001.

Health System Benefits

"EHR design and configuration must: (1) facilitate clinical staff to perform work as necessary and to the extent their licensure and privileges permit and (2) allow physicians to dynamically allocate and delegate work to appropriate members of the care team as permitted by institutional policies."³

• ³ Improving Care: Priorities to Improve Electronic Health Record Usability. American Medical Association, 2014.

• Health Policy Brief: Eliminating Fraud and Abuse Health Affairs, 2012.

• By The Numbers: Our Progress In Digitizing Health Care. Health Affairs, 2016.

• To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, 2000.

• The Triple Aim: Care, Health, And Cost. Health Affairs, 2008.

• Health Policy Brief: Improving Care Transitions. Health Affairs, 2012.

• Connected Health: A Review Of Technologies And Strategies To Improve Patient Care With Telemedicine And Telehealth. Health Affairs, 2014.

• Primary Care Physicians' Links to Other Physicians Through Medicare Patients: The Scope of Care Coordination. National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2009.

• Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare Releases Targeted Solutions Tool for Hand-Off Communications. Joint Commission Perspectives, 2012.

• Health Information Technology Patient Safety Action & Surveillance Plan. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2013.

• A 10-Year Vision to Achieve an Interoperable Health IT Infrastructure. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2014.

Quality and Safety Concerns

"An estimated 80% of serious medical errors involve miscommunication between caregivers during the transfer of patients."⁴

• ⁴ Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare Releases Targeted Solutions Tool for Hand-Off Communications. Joint Commission Perspectives, 2012.

• Can Electronic Health Records Prevent Harm to Patients? Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2016.

• A New, Evidence-based Estimate of Patient Harms Associated with Hospital Care. National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2013.

• Meaningful Use IT Reduces Hospital-caused Adverse Drug Events Even at Challenged Hospitals. Healthcare: The Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation, 2015.

• Promoting Patient Safety Through Effective Health Information Technology Risk Management. The RAND Corporation, 2014.

• The Medical Home: A Review of the Earliest Evidence on the Effectiveness of the Patient-Centered Medical Home Model. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2013.

• Root Cause Analysis Reports Help Identify Common Factors In Delayed Diagnosis And Treatment Of Outpatients. Health Affairs, 2013.

Efficacy of International Standards

"Regarding England's Summary Care Record (SCR) standard: 'In 87% of encounters where SCR was accessed, it provided information which would otherwise have been unknown.'"⁵

• ⁵ Community Pharmacy Access to Summary Care Records. Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2015.

• Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally. The Commonwealth Fund, 2014.

• World Health Statistics 2015. World Health Organization, 2015.

• U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective: Spending, Use of Services, Prices, and Health in 13 Countries. The Commonwealth Fund, 2015.