Dean Riggott Photography
Surescripts
As national healthcare interoperability policy advances and value-based care gains momentum, trusted health intelligence sharing has never been more important. Busy healthcare providers must be able to confirm clinical and medication histories in the moment of care to make informed treatment decisions. Value-based care teams must accurately track incentivized care activities and avoid low-value or duplicative ones.
All of this requires real-time information on care activity at the patient and population levels. With the power of the Surescripts Network Alliance, people across the care team found it easier to communicate and bridge information gaps in 2023—helping them all stay aligned and updated on patients’ care.
At the same time, Surescripts began laying the groundwork to expand interoperability still further via the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common AgreementSM. In November 2023, Surescripts moved forward in the process of becoming a Qualified Health Information NetworkTM (QHINTM) through our subsidiary Surescripts Health Information Network LLCTM, which submitted its application for review by The Sequoia Project, the Recognized Coordinating Entity® designated by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. In February 2024, Surescripts Health Information Network advanced to the Pre-Production Testing and Project Plan Completion phase as a candidate QHIN.
Record Locator & Exchange
Record Locator & Exchange quickly shows where patients have received care and locates medical records shared through Carequality—a national, consensus-based interoperability framework that enables information exchange among health data networks.
In 2023, Record Locator & Exchange was used by 259,699 clinicians from 59,172 organizations across all 50 states and Washington, D.C.—a 3.8% increase in users from 2022. Together, they found and shared 157.1 million clinical documents each month, representing 31% of Carequality’s average monthly exchange activity in 2023.1
Care Event Notifications
Care Event Notifications gives clinicians and care managers timely intelligence on important healthcare interactions for their patients across settings, including admission, discharge and transfer notifications. By subscribing to updates on their patients, they can more easily avoid duplicative therapies, prevent adverse drug events and coordinate cost-effective care.
2.8 million notifications sent
43% increase in patients covered
30% increase in notifications in Q4 2023, compared to Q3 2023
Clinical Direct Messaging
Clinical Direct Messaging supports care collaboration by making it easy for pharmacists, prescribers, payer organizations and others to exchange information within existing workflows. In 2023, 881,070 individuals and organizations—including 22,556 pharmacies—used it to send and receive secure, HIPAA-compliant messages. Messages included 28.4 million electronic case reports (a 21.4% increase from 2022), helping public health agencies track COVID-19 and other diseases.
Medication History
Medication History simplifies the medication review process with dispensed medication data to help inform e-prescribing, assess adherence, reconcile medications and reduce the likelihood of adverse drug events. It’s also a critical component of many value-based care programs, allowing care management teams to easily spot and close gaps in care for patient populations.
When clinicians reviewed patients' medication records in 2023, technologies including data standardization, augmentation and deduplication made the experience simpler and safer.
51% of Medication History Sigs translated from free text to Structured & Codified Sig format by Sig IQ
85% of Medication History responses augmented with additional information
61% of Medication History responses streamlined by removing duplicate records
Medication History for Reconciliation reduces errors during care transitions
As the second largest health system in Alabama, Huntsville Hospital Health System treats more than 1,400 patients each day. To improve patient safety during admissions and discharges, they launched a Pharmacy Transitions of Care team and equipped staff with Surescripts Medication History for Reconciliation in order to quickly and accurately confirm patients’ medication histories.
As a result, in 2023 the team reported that they’d eliminated the vast majority of errors from the medication reconciliation process
- 98.9% reduction in medication history errors during care transitions
“Because of the work of the Transitions of Care team and use of Surescripts, our doctors and nurses feel much more secure about the medication list when performing admission reconciliation and when discharging patients.”
Joseph Ho, Pharm.D.
Clinical Pharmacist Education Lead, Huntsville HospitalThe 2023 National Progress Report
Footnotes
- Calculation based on monthly transaction reporting from Carequality, January–November 2023.
Read More