| The skinny
The workflow for Social Security disability benefits determination has historically been a slow one, with hospitals and patients often waiting months for records to be requested, collected and manually transferred through faxed or mailed documents before a decision can even be made. Now, the process is starting to shift to real-time electronic data exchange. In February, the Social Security Administration joined the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), a national interoperability framework that sets standardized rules and infrastructure for securely sharing electronic health information across different systems. Since then, hospitals have begun making real progress toward faster, more seamless disability determinations, according to Dr. David Kaelber, chief health informatics officer at MetroHealth System in Ohio. From months to seconds
Dr. Kaelber said that MetroHealth handles about 600 disability applications per month. In the legacy process, SSA determinations could take months, largely because of slow record retrieval processes and staff needing to manually retype information across systems — both of which would introduce delays and potential errors. Because most healthcare data is already within EHRs, this manual transfer process is outdated, Dr. Kaelber pointed out. In contrast, TEFCA-based exchange can shorten record transfer times from weeks or months to seconds, he said. Epic’s part
Epic is playing a key role in operationalizing this shift, with its EHR system serving as one of the main pathways connecting hospitals to the SSA via TEFCA exchange. Once patients authorize access, medical records can be shared automatically between providers and the agency, noted Nihit Bajaj, a technical coordinator at Epic. Bajaj said many of the hospitals currently connected to the SSA are Epic customers, but the longer-term goal is to bring in providers that use other EHR systems as TEFCA adoption expands. — By Katie Adams |
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