The widely held vision of achieving electronic clinical data exchange across the United States is far from a reality with few organizations facilitating such exchange and many failing in the process, says a new web exclusive study by Harvard researchers published today by Health Affairs.
The study, based on a 2007 survey of 145 regional health information organizations (RHIOs), is a comprehensive assessment of the state of electronic health data exchange--hailed at one time as the key to improving the quality, efficiency, and coordination of care. However, at the time the survey was conducted, nearly one-quarter of the 145 RHIOs were defunct. Only 20 initiatives were deemed to be of at least modest size and exchanging some clinical data. Five of those RHIOs exchanged data for a specific population; only 15 RHIOs exchanged clinical data across a range of patient populations.
“If we want RHIOs to attain the vision of comprehensive health information exchange, we need to increase our investments in them,” said lead study author Julia Adler-Milstein, a doctoral candidate in health policy at Harvard University. “Otherwise, many of these RHIOs will be unable to sustain themselves under the current market-oriented approach.” Read the abstract.
