Different Strategies to Meet Information-Sharing Needs Publicly Supported Community Health Information Exchanges versus Enterprise Health Information Exchanges

The US government has invested billions of dollars to encourage the adoption of information technologies to exchange health information and to enable providers to efficiently and effectively share patient information with other providers. Health care providers have multiple options for obtaining and sharing patient information. In a new study in the March issue of The Milbank Quarterly, researchers from Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and Texas A&M Health Sciences Center investigated why some health systems participate in community health information exchanges (HIEs) and others establish their own. A qualitative analysis, the study identifies factors influencing participation in, and success of, each HIE approach.