Beacon Partners surveyed 200 senior healthcare executives in the fall of 2011 about the benefits of participating in or establishing an health information exchange (HIE); most of the respondents were from community hospitals and other hospitals (less than 10% were from ambulatory care providers). Among the survey’s findings:
- Nearly 70% of respondents are currently planning for an HIE, despite their perceptions of high start-up costs and other governance issues.
- 41% of respondents consider high start-up costs and insufficient capital to support HIEs as their top concerns.
- 64% of respondents named the CIO as the person responsible for HIE development, while governance considerations for HIEs and potential connecting “partners” are the responsibility of others in the C-suite leadership group.
- Approximately half of respondents have not yet created a department, oversight group or executive role to handle the HIE initiative.
- 38% of respondents have annual budgets for HIE development of less than $1 million, while 21% have NO budget.
- 66% of respondents see HIEs as a positive move for their organization and 42% also believe HIEs will improve patient outcomes (and not one respondent felt it would have a negative effect on patient outcomes).
- Other HIE components that respondents felt would have a positive impact on their organization: Primary care connectivity (88%), Continuum-of-care (84%), Clinical quality reporting (74%), Patient accessibility (67%), Interoperable IT systems (66%) and Medical staff alignment efforts (59%).
The report does not provide additional details about the survey methodology.
Ignatius Bau 