Disjointed Health IT Infrastructure Can Impede Care Coordination

Disjointed health IT infrastructure and data silos can be major obstacles to care coordination for hospitals. And poor care coordination can lead to hospital readmissions for patients and financial penalties for organizations, explained Bill Wylie, senior vice president of business operations at the Georgia Hospital Association (GHA). GHA is a nonprofit trade association made up of member health systems, hospitals, and individuals in administrative and decision-making positions within those institutions. “We were looking for a program that can allow hospitals to communicate more efficiently with post-acute providers, physicians, and other folks like that to help streamline care and make it more efficient outside of the hospital,” Wylie told HITInfrastructure.com. To address these issues, GHA’s Georgia Hospital Health Services subsidiary decided to partner with CarePort in offering a care coordination management solution to its 173 acute care hospital members in Georgia.