According to a study by Carta Healthcare, 83% of patients have to repeat their health history to different healthcare providers. The survey, which involved more than 1,000 patients, revealed that almost three-quarters of them had to fill out a duplicate form while 42% spent six minutes or more recounting their past medical history due to a lack of integrated data. Carta Healthcare was founded by Matt Hollingsworth, who watched his mother carry a binder cataloging her five bouts with cancer between medical appointments. The company was established to address the issue of interoperability in healthcare, which Hollingsworth believes is what patients care the most about regarding their data.
Hollingsworth said, "One thing that I think is completely unconscionable is that you can't share your data with other care providers when you want to get better care, and people get frustrated about that constantly." The lack of integration is also responsible for over a third of respondents being frustrated that their doctor was unable to provide them with outcomes of their condition based on other patients' results.
Regarding patients' top concerns regarding their experience at healthcare visits, 53% of respondents said time spent waiting was their primary concern, while 48% said cost or lack of data regarding outcomes for their condition. Hollingsworth said this gap in information is a matter of poor health data integration. While it is currently possible to integrate and aggregate de-identified clinical data, the lack of adoption results in patients feeling that important information is being kept from them.
Of the respondents, 64% said their doctor being honest about their condition and what factors are and are not in their control in regard to their health would increase their chances of recommending their doctor to others. However, what patients do not see, according to Hollingsworth, is the mountain of labor done between appointments, largely by clinicians like nurses, inputting patient data. With staffing shortages and burnout rampant, Carta works to fill the gap by providing software that eases data input and integration tedium.
Hollingsworth said, "The way that you get comparable data sets in the U.S. healthcare system is you have nurses go and fill forms out with a standard code set. That's the only place in the U.S. healthcare system where translatable data is created. You have a nurse at one site and a nurse at another site that are filling out forms with the same exact definition so that they can be directly compared."
Patients' experiences at healthcare visits also showed that about half of the respondents said they spent the majority of their visit waiting for a doctor or a nurse, while only 20% said they spent most of their visit talking to a healthcare professional. Therefore, the waiting room experience is what patients see the most, which can result in frustration and dissatisfaction.
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