In a “concerning trend,” providers of aging services such as skilled nursing have stalled in their progress toward adopting advanced electronic health record technology, according to a newly released annual report from LeadingAge’s Center for Aging Services Technologies.
The report tracked what percentage of providers fall into each of the seven stages of EHR capability as defined by LeadingAge CAST. The top 3 stages — those closest to achieving advanced interoperability capabilities — saw very little improvement between 2023 and 2024.
Stage 7, described by LeadingAge CAST as “the ideal full interoperability stage the sector strives for,” saw no change at all year-over-year — remaining at exactly 8.31% of providers.
That key percentage nearly doubled between 2018 and 2019, but has actually dropped from its peak of 8.91% in that year.
Interoperability has increasingly come into focus as a way for long-term care providers to achieve better care outcomes and streamline workflows for their overburdened staff. In a recent McKnight’s Online Forum session, a health technology official with the US Department of Health and Human Services described it as an overlooked but critical factor in addressing the health information burdens faced by providers.
But with progress on interoperability capabilities stalling, experts are raising concerns about this key tool to improving the sector.
“This stagnation prompts critical questions about the obstacles and challenges (lack of funding) that organizations encounter in elevating their EHR systems to more advanced levels of interoperability,” said Scott Code, vice president of LeadingAge CAST, in a report accompanying the findings Monday.
Experts with nonprofit health information technology advisors the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News that a lack of funding and incentives were contributing to the slow progress in the sector.
“Long-term and post-acute care was not included as part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services EHR Incentive Program — also known as Meaningful Use — which has created a digital divide that is impacting the healthcare ecosystem,” according to Christina Caraballo, vice president of informatics at HIMSS, and Mike Kroll, senior manager of informatics and operations at HIMSS.
In a statement to McKnight’s Tuesday, the experts explained that “interoperability challenges included costs to maintain or acquire new technology, lack of funding for health IT improvements, lack of incentives (policy/financial) to perform interoperability functions, and lack of meaningful interoperability between care settings.”
They also noted that high turnover rates in the long-term care workforce were adding on-the-ground challenges to interoperability advancements because of the challenges of getting often-inexperienced staff the proper training.
The HIMSS experts noted that initiatives such as the PACIO Project, 360X and the Moving Forward Coalition were working toward solutions in this field, but also said that additional funding and regulatory incentives would likely be needed to drive further progress toward the sector’s EHR goals.
