International Comparison of Six Basic eHealth Indicators Across 14 Countries: An eHealth Benchmarking Study

Elske Ammenwerth¹, Georg Duftschmid², Zaid Al-Hamdan³, Hala Bawadi⁴, Ngai T Cheung⁵, Kyung-Hee Cho⁶, Guillermo Goldfarb⁷, Kemal H Gülkesen⁸, Nissim Harel⁹, Michio Kimura¹⁰, Önder Kırca¹¹, Hiroshi Kondoh¹², Sabine Koch¹³, Hadas Lewy¹⁴, Dara Mize¹⁵, Sari Palojoki¹⁶, Hyeoun-Ae Park¹⁷, Christopher Pearce¹⁸, Fernan G B de Quirós¹⁹, Kaija Saranto¹⁶, Christoph Seidel²⁰, Vivian Vimarlund²¹, Martin C Were²², Johanna Westbrook²³, Chung P Wong²⁴, Reinhold Haux²⁵, Christoph U Lehmann²⁶

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Medical Informatics, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology (UMIT), Hall in Tirol, Austria.
² Section for Medical Information Management, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
³ Faculty of Nursing/WHO Collaborating Center, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan.
⁴ Maternal and Child Health Nursing Department, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan.
⁵ Hospital Authority, Hong Kong.
⁶ Seoul National University, Korea.
⁷ Medical Informatics, Hospital de Niños Ricardo Gutiérrez, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁸ Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, Medical Faculty, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey.
⁹ Department of Computer Science, Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel.
¹⁰ Medical Informatics Department, School of Medicine, Hamamatsu University, Shizuoka, Japan.
¹¹ Department of Clinical Oncology, Memorial and Medstar Oncology Center, Antalya, Turkey.
¹² Department of Medical Informatics, Tottori University Hospital, Yonago, Japan.
¹³ Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Health Informatics Centre, KarolinskaInstitutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁴ Digital Health Ventures, Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel.
¹⁵ Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
¹⁶ Department of Health and Social Management, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.
¹⁷ College of Nursing, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea.
¹⁸ Director of Research, Outcome Health, Blackburn, Australia.
¹⁹ Department of Health Informatics, Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
²⁰ Division of eHealth, Digitalisation and Social Health Economy, Lower Saxony Ministry for Social Affairs, Health and Equal Opportunities, Hannover, Germany.
²¹ Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
²² Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
²³ Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Macquarie, Australia.
²⁴ Hong Kong Society of Medical Informatics, Hong Kong.
²⁵ Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics, TU Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School, Braunschweig, Germany.
²⁶ Clinical Informatics Center, Department of Pediatrics, Bioinformatics, and Population and Data Sciences, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, Texas, United States.

PMID: 33207386
PMCID: PMC7728164
DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1715796

Comparative Study

International Comparison of Six Basic eHealth Indicators Across 14 Countries: An eHealth Benchmarking Study

Elske Ammenwerth et al. Methods Inf Med. 2020 Dec.

. 2020 Dec;59(S 02):e46-e63.

doi: 10.1055/s-0040-1715796. Epub 2020 Nov 18.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Medical Informatics, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology (UMIT), Hall in Tirol, Austria.
² Section for Medical Information Management, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
³ Faculty of Nursing/WHO Collaborating Center, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan.
⁴ Maternal and Child Health Nursing Department, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan.
⁵ Hospital Authority, Hong Kong.
⁶ Seoul National University, Korea.
⁷ Medical Informatics, Hospital de Niños Ricardo Gutiérrez, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁸ Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, Medical Faculty, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey.
⁹ Department of Computer Science, Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel.
¹⁰ Medical Informatics Department, School of Medicine, Hamamatsu University, Shizuoka, Japan.
¹¹ Department of Clinical Oncology, Memorial and Medstar Oncology Center, Antalya, Turkey.
¹² Department of Medical Informatics, Tottori University Hospital, Yonago, Japan.
¹³ Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Health Informatics Centre, KarolinskaInstitutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁴ Digital Health Ventures, Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel.
¹⁵ Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
¹⁶ Department of Health and Social Management, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.
¹⁷ College of Nursing, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea.
¹⁸ Director of Research, Outcome Health, Blackburn, Australia.
¹⁹ Department of Health Informatics, Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
²⁰ Division of eHealth, Digitalisation and Social Health Economy, Lower Saxony Ministry for Social Affairs, Health and Equal Opportunities, Hannover, Germany.
²¹ Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
²² Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
²³ Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Macquarie, Australia.
²⁴ Hong Kong Society of Medical Informatics, Hong Kong.
²⁵ Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics, TU Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School, Braunschweig, Germany.
²⁶ Clinical Informatics Center, Department of Pediatrics, Bioinformatics, and Population and Data Sciences, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, Texas, United States.

PMID: 33207386
PMCID: PMC7728164
DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1715796

Abstract

Background: Many countries adopt eHealth applications to support patient-centered care. Through information exchange, these eHealth applications may overcome institutional data silos and support holistic and ubiquitous (regional or national) information logistics. Available eHealth indicators mostly describe usage and acceptance of eHealth in a country. The eHealth indicators focusing on the cross-institutional availability of patient-related information for health care professionals, patients, and care givers are rare.

Objectives: This study aims to present eHealth indicators on cross-institutional availability of relevant patient data for health care professionals, as well as for patients and their caregivers across 14 countries (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong as a special administrative region of China, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States) to compare our indicators and the resulting data for the examined countries with other eHealth benchmarks and to extend and explore changes to a comparable survey in 2017. We defined "availability of patient data" as the ability to access data in and to add data to the patient record in the respective country.

Methods: The invited experts from each of the 14 countries provided the indicator data for their country to reflect the situation on August 1, 2019, as date of reference. Overall, 60 items were aggregated to six eHealth indicators.

Results: Availability of patient-related information varies strongly by country. Health care professionals can access patients' most relevant cross-institutional health record data fully in only four countries. Patients and their caregivers can access their health record data fully in only two countries. Patients are able to fully add relevant data only in one country. Finland showed the best outcome of all eHealth indicators, followed by South Korea, Japan, and Sweden.

Conclusion: Advancement in eHealth depends on contextual factors such as health care organization, national health politics, privacy laws, and health care financing. Improvements in eHealth indicators are thus often slow. However, our survey shows that some countries were able to improve on at least some indicators between 2017 and 2019. We anticipate further improvements in the future.

The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

References

1. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Draft OECD Guide to Measuring ICTs in the Health SectorAvailable at:https://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/Draft-oecd-guide-to-measuring.... Accessed July 15, 2020
1. Kruse C S, Beane A. Health information technology continues to show positive effect on medical outcomes: systematic review. J Med Internet Res. 2018;20(02):e41. - PMC - PubMed
1. Hersh W R, Totten A M, Eden K B. Outcomes from health information exchange: systematic review and future research needs. JMIR Med Inform. 2015;3(04):e39. - PMC - PubMed
1. Kuhn K A, Giuse D A. From hospital information systems to health information systems. Problems, challenges, perspectives. Methods Inf Med. 2001;40(04):275–287IS. - PubMed
1. Eysenbach G. What is e-health? J Med Internet Res. 2001;3(02):E20. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Actions

MeSH terms

Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions
Actions

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources
Medical
- MedlinePlus Health Information

Save citation to file

Email citation

Add to Collections

Add to My Bibliography

Your saved search

Create a file for external citation management software

Your RSS Feed

International Comparison of Six Basic eHealth Indicators Across 14 Countries: An eHealth Benchmarking Study

Affiliations

International Comparison of Six Basic eHealth Indicators Across 14 Countries: An eHealth Benchmarking Study

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

References

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Medical