Cho Na-Eun, Hong KiHoon
College of Business, Hongik University, Seoul 04066, Republic of Korea.
Healthcare (Basel). 2023 Jul 14;11(14):2023. doi: 10.3390/healthcare11142023.
The electronic sharing of health information holds the potential to enhance communication and coordination among hospitals and providers, ultimately leading to improved hospital performance. However, despite the benefits, hospitals often encounter significant challenges when it comes to sharing information with external parties. Our study aimed to identify the circumstances under which sharing information with external parties can result in changes in overall hospital costs, with a particular emphasis on various obstacles that hospitals may encounter, including lack of incentives or capabilities essential to facilitate effective information exchange. To achieve this goal, we obtain data from multiple sources, including the American Hospital Association (AHA) annual and IT surveys, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital compare dataset, and the Census Bureau's small-area income and poverty estimates. Consistent with previous research, we observed a significant reduction in hospital costs when information was shared internally but not externally. However, our findings also revealed that the sharing of health information can lead to cost savings for hospitals when they encounter challenges such as the absence of incentives and capabilities regardless of whether the information is shared internally or externally. The implication of our study is simple but strong: perseverance and effort yield positive outcomes. Only when hospitals push through challenges related to sharing information can they achieve the anticipated advantages of information sharing. Based on our results, we suggest that policymakers should strategically target hospitals and providers that face challenges in sharing health information rather than focusing on those without obstacles. This targeted approach can significantly increase policy efficiency, and we emphasize the need for policymakers to address the specific areas where hospitals and providers encounter difficulties. By doing so, they can effectively "scratch where it itches" and address the core issues hindering the successful exchange of health information.
健康信息的电子共享有潜力加强医院和医疗服务提供者之间的沟通与协调，最终提升医院绩效。然而，尽管有这些益处，但医院在与外部机构共享信息时往往会遇到重大挑战。我们的研究旨在确定在哪些情况下与外部机构共享信息会导致医院总成本的变化，特别关注医院可能遇到的各种障碍，包括缺乏促进有效信息交流所必需的激励措施或能力。为实现这一目标，我们从多个来源获取数据，包括美国医院协会（AHA）年度调查和信息技术调查、医疗保险和医疗补助服务中心（CMS）的医院比较数据集以及人口普查局的小区域收入和贫困估计数据。与先前的研究一致，我们观察到在内部而非外部共享信息时，医院成本显著降低。然而，我们的研究结果还表明，当医院遇到缺乏激励措施和能力等挑战时，无论信息是在内部还是外部共享，健康信息的共享都能为医院节省成本。我们研究的启示简单而有力：坚持不懈和努力会产生积极成果。只有当医院克服与信息共享相关的挑战时，它们才能实现信息共享的预期优势。基于我们的研究结果，我们建议政策制定者应战略性地针对那些在共享健康信息方面面临挑战的医院和医疗服务提供者，而不是关注那些没有障碍的机构。这种有针对性的方法可以显著提高政策效率，我们强调政策制定者需要解决医院和医疗服务提供者遇到困难的具体领域。通过这样做，他们可以有效地“对症下药”，解决阻碍健康信息成功交换的核心问题。
