Human services organizations promote responsible administration that is responsive to citizens’ needs, publically accountable, and prudent in using resources to plan and deliver care. Interoperability can help facilitate these goals; however, there are many challenges to implementing interoperability in public healthcare, including:
- Budgetary shortfalls and the pressures of cost containment
- Independent, idiosyncratic systems of care that impede service coordination and information exchange
- High costs of processing and exchanging information in a universally meaningful format
- Inconsistent local, state, and federal regulations that complicate program administration and increase costs
Human services organizations must find internal methods to shield themselves from these external factors as they continue working to connect consumers, funders, and service providers. In addition to external challenges, human services organizations face internal challenges, including:
- Ensuring efficient fiscal management
- Coordinating care across systems
- Holistically meeting clients’ multiple needs
- Maximizing the benefits derived from available funds
- Sharing information adequately
Coordinating and monitoring care delivery is complex and information-intensive. Striving toward interoperability can provide human services agencies with more tightly organized, well-coordinated care delivery and program administration, which will be more cost-efficient and productive over the long term. Using information technology and changing organizational structures are two helpful steps for tackling these tasks within the context of an interoperability initiative.
Although information technology and organizational changes carry a substantial cost in money, time and effort, the long-term benefits of organizations’ increased capacity to provide care will more than compensate for short-term costs. Increasing demand for services and the need to contain costs will mobilize government bureaucracies to consider innovative models and to invest in infrastructure. Current healthcare reform efforts focus on using information technologies for broader health data exchange. Vast fund allocations for health IT in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) serve as an incentive for public organizations to pursue interoperability as a promising strategy for handling internal and external challenges.