A new meta-study from RAND Corp. published in the Annals of Internal Medicine has shown that if health information exchanges have a beneficial effect on clinical care, there isn't enough information to show it.
Researchers reviewed study data collected between 2003 and May 2014, examining the effect of health data exchange on health outcomes, efficiency, utilization, costs, satisfaction, further HIE usage, sustainability and attitudes or barriers to HIE use.
The only arena in which the data showed HIEs may have affected clinical care was in the emergency department, where evidence showed decreased ED use and costs. However, researchers described that data as "low-quality."
Direct evidence that clinicians were using HIEs was reported in about 10 percent of patient encounters, with only one-quarter of HIE organizations reporting financial sustainability. While many stakeholders expressed finding value in HIEs, technical and workflow issues, costs and privacy concerns have limited their use, according to the studies analyzed.
To better understand the effects of HIEs, those who use them must create more and higher-quality data, according to a report from Forbes. "Every HIE should have an evaluation plan," said lead study author Robert Rudin to Forbes. "That might mean partnering with an external research organization and having a more formal evaluation to see the extent of use and the impact on patient health outcomes and quality."
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