Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Jun 12;1(3):e10031.
doi: 10.1002/lrh2.10031. eCollection 2017 Jul.

Diverging views on health information exchange organizations

Joshua R Vest  1 , Mari F Greenberger  2 , Audrey Garnatz  2
Affiliations

Diverging views on health information exchange organizations

Joshua R Vest et al. Learn Health Syst. .

Abstract

Introduction: Health information exchange (HIE) capabilities meet the demands for a more effective, efficient, and safer health care system. However, organizations and individual providers have pursued different strategies to meet their respective needs for HIE capabilities. Because effective information sharing is necessary to a learning health system, this study sought to explore the perceptions of different approaches' effect on key features of an effective health care system.

Methods: An anonymous web-based survey was sent to a convenience sample of the membership of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative with knowledge of HIE (n=68). A series of 7-point Likert-type items measured perceptions of enterprise health information exchanges (eHIEs) and community health information organizations (cHIOs) in the areas of effect on exchange participation, effect on market dynamics, relationship to DIRECT Secure Messaging and vendor-mediated exchange, and effect on quality. Also, respondents were asked to rate 13 qualities and services as "more about eHIE" or "more about cHIO."

Results: Respondents tended to agree on the importance of cHIO and eHIE. Community benefits and support for public health agencies were concepts more often applied to cHIOs.

Discussion: This study affirmed much of the conventional wisdom and anecdotal comments about perceptions of cHIOs and eHIEs. Although the respondents viewed cHIOs and eHIEs differently in terms of broader societal benefit and strategic advantage, nonetheless consistent agreement appeared in areas of importance in relationship to other information sharing strategies and overall effect on the quality of care.

Keywords: health information exchange; organizational strategy; policy.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. 114th Congress . Medicare access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015. 2015; 114–10. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2 Accessed May 31, 2017.
    1. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology . Report to Congress: report on health information blocking. Washington DC: Department of Health and Human Services; 2015.
    1. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology . Connecting health and care for the nation: A shared nationwide interoperability roadmap. Washington DC; 2015.
    1. Rubin JC, Friedman CP. Weaving together a healthcare improvement tapestry: Learning health system brings together health IT data stakeholders to share knowledge and improve health. J AHIMA. 2014;85(5):38‐43. - PubMed
    1. Rubin RD. The Community Health Information Movement: Where it's been, where it's going In: O'Carroll PW, Yasnoff WA, Ward ME, Ripp LH, Martin EL, eds. Public Health Informatics & Information Systems. New York: Springer; 2003.

LinkOut - more resources