Health data interoperability offers faster lab results, betters societal outcomes: Report

To highlight its learnings with the greater health community, technology startup Abartys Health this week released a report detailing the current lack of health record interoperability between patients, insurers, and labs. 

According to the paper, the ability to exchange patient health information between plans and providers remains out of reach for the majority of health platforms.

A survey in 2019 found that in the United States alone, the healthcare industry creates almost $1 trillion in waste each year – including up to $265.6 billion lost due to administrative complexity. While the US government has for a long time aimed for interoperability, it was only recent policy that finally sought to coordinate all stakeholders. Abartys Health shortly after introduced its patientLynk product to connect all parties. Its data delivery system provided patients a one-stop-shop for personal healthcare records, insurance documents, and physician history.

Said Abartys Health co-founder Lauren Cascio, “As we’re seeing plainly, health concerns today do not stop at national borders, so the construction and deployment of an interconnected global network that can limit the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, as well as predict risk based on comorbidity, is critical going forward.”

The report noted that uniting information systems and bringing together historical data represented an ability to construct public health profiles, enabling governments to better make decisions.

In Puerto Rico patientLynk currently delivers more than one hundred thousand lab results every month to the platform’s 250,000 patients.

More than ever before in history, the importance of faster lab test response times has been highlighted amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. A solution to better connect patients to providers could prove key in combating public health challenges.

The entire white paper can be read here.