EHR Interoperability With Long-Term Care Providers Wanted, but Who Will Pay?

CMS has urged skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and home care agencies to acquire electronic health record systems that are capable of exchanging data with hospitals and other health care providers, but it hasn't explained where these long-term and post-acute-care (LTPAC) providers will get the money to implement these health IT systems.

In a recent American Hospital Association survey, 38% of hospitals said that they sent structured care summaries to LTPAC providers including SNFs. But IHPI member Julia Adler-Milstein, Ph.D., questions how much information is really being exchanged.

"That's some basic level of connectivity, but whether that means the care summaries are arriving in a way that's useful is unclear," she said. "It's not the case that 38% of hospitals have really good connectivity with long-term care providers."