It’s no secret that many aspects of the U.S. healthcare delivery system differ greatly than the rest of the world. HIMSS Analytics Executive Vice President John Hoyt explained that especially in Europe, they are more focused on the continuity of care than the Americans.

At HIMSS15, Hoyt led a session about the Continuity of Care Maturity Model he and his colleagues helped devise, along with input from European stakeholders in Germany, Italy, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. Hoyt’s team was primarily driven by the opportunity to improve efficiencies within large health systems, but their potential effect on ACOs became clear as well.

One strikingly vast divide between EMRs in the United States and Europe: they are much more than just medical records, but “social support systems.” Patient data in Europe goes far beyond blood pressure and BMI but includes socioeconomic indicators of health like access to healthy food choices. The ultimate goal would include both a shift to prevention rather than treatment and connecting data from different care settings. Ideally, a patient’s record would include everything from primary care to hospice and public health information.

Read more about what ACOs can learn from our European colleagues.