Dr. Feinberg and Bloom addressed a major takeaway in the conversation about interoperability as it applies to PACE specifically: that as interoperability improves, it needs to be longitudinal, deduplicated, usable, and customized.

“Information blocking to me is the same as saying bad care,” said Dr. Feinberg. “Not only do we have to have the records fluid from an interoperable standpoint, we have to make them longitudinal so they make sense, and it tells the story. … and deduplicate it so that it’s usable,” Dr. Feinberg said. 

While important for all healthcare organizations, this is especially applicable for PACE, Bloom added. “The sheer notion of just getting a data dump of all historical records is not always helpful, and it stands to reason that the individuals who come to PACE and are eligible for PACE have very significant health needs. So, there’s some degree of urgency to be aware of their most immediate, recent status. What medications are they on? Are they on any treatment regimen? The immediacy of needing to know is significant.” 

Dr. Feinberg added that not only should the data be presented in order and deduplicated, but customization is key. “If I’m the cardiologist that’s consulting to the PACE program, I want to see the information in a different way than if I’m the nurse practitioner during admission, right? It has to be context specific. Well, we now have the tools to do that, but I think it’s important that we don’t lose sight of those things as we solve this interoperability challenge.”