Richwine Chelsea, Strawley Catherine, Chang Wei, Everson Jordan
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, 330 C St. 7th Floor, Washington, DC 20201, United States.
Health Aff Sch. 2025 Jun 27;3(7):qxaf133. doi: 10.1093/haschl/qxaf133. eCollection 2025 Jul.
Various federal efforts have supported the development of local, regional, and state health information exchange organizations (HIOs), a type of network that promotes secure electronic exchange of patient health information among hospitals, healthcare providers, community-based organizations, and public health authorities. With the emergence of complementary and alternative modes to facilitate exchange, we sought to assess the value of HIOs to hospital interoperability.
We leveraged nationally representative survey data from a unique linked dataset of 2200 hospitals linked to HIOs to examine the relationship between hospitals' engagement in a range of interoperability activities and participation in an HIO that offers services to support those activities.
We found that hospital participation in an HIO was significantly associated with greater engagement in clinical information exchange, public health reporting, and health-related social needs information exchange. However, among hospitals participating in an HIO, we did not find strong evidence of a relationship between specific HIO capabilities or services and hospital engagement in exchange.
Our findings indicate HIOs offer a useful avenue for exchange but are only one path through which exchange takes place as there are various alternatives available to support interoperability activities.
联邦政府采取了多项举措来支持地方、区域和州级卫生信息交换组织（HIO）的发展，这类网络促进了医院、医疗服务提供者、社区组织和公共卫生当局之间患者健康信息的安全电子交换。随着促进信息交换的补充性和替代性模式的出现，我们试图评估HIO对医院互操作性的价值。
我们利用来自与HIO相关联的2200家医院的独特链接数据集的全国代表性调查数据，来研究医院参与一系列互操作性活动与参与提供支持这些活动服务的HIO之间的关系。
我们发现，医院参与HIO与在临床信息交换、公共卫生报告和健康相关社会需求信息交换方面的更多参与显著相关。然而，在参与HIO的医院中，我们没有找到有力证据表明特定的HIO能力或服务与医院的信息交换参与之间存在关联。
我们的研究结果表明，HIO为信息交换提供了一条有用的途径，但它只是信息交换发生的一种途径，因为还有各种其他方式可用于支持互操作性活动。
