the health strategist
institute for continuous health transformation
& digital health
SOURCE:
NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery 2022
Ari Bronsoler, PhD, Joseph Doyle, PhD, Cason Schmit, JD, and John Van Reenen, PhD, MSc
December 21, 2022
Summary
What is the context?
- It is widely agreed that health information sharing holds enormous potential to improve health care productivity.
- Although the adoption of electronic health records in the United States over the past 15 years has been impressive, the use of data — and subsequent improvements in health care productivity — has been disappointing.
What is the scope of the paper?
- This article considers the role that state policy plays in the adoption and use of health information exchange (HIE) across providers.
- The authors built a novel database of state laws from 2000 through 2019 that tracks 12 dimensions of policies that may facilitate HIE usage.
- The dimensions fall along four categories:
(1) clarifying HIE governance,
(2) strengthening financial stability,
(3) specifying the uses and users of an HIE, and
(4) protecting the underlying data.
What are the findings?
- The authors find that regulations related to privacy protections and HIE financial viability have substantial effects on information sharing.
- The category that has the strongest relationship with health information sharing is related to data protection.
- In states that add a dimension making the protection of data less costly, HIE usage increases by 18%.
- Within the category of data-protection measures, one stands out: enacting legislation that has patients participate by default leads to a 16% increase in usage.
- Adding a dimension for each of the other three categories leads to a 4% increase in HIE usage, although only the relationship with financial sustainability is measured precisely enough to be statistically significant.
- In particular, states that set up the ability to charge participant fees and authorize the HIE to request state, federal, and private funding achieve greater HIE.
What are the conclusions & recommendations
- These results point to policy levers that can catalyze the use of digital tools to improve health and lower health care costs.
These results point to policy levers that can catalyze the use of digital tools to improve health and lower health care costs.
Originally published at: https://catalyst.nejm.org
