10 Key Readiness Indicators for Health Information Exchange

ECRI Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing applied scientific research to enable improvement of patient care. The organization is a designated Evidence-Based Practice Center by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and listed as a federal Patient Safety Organization by HHS.

The institute makes available  for download much of their research and white papers including the survey results on hospital readiness for HIE. Crossing the Connectivity Chasm: Pinpointing Gaps in Readiness to Exchange Health Information analyzes the results of a survey conducted by ECRI and their partner s2a.  The survey looks at 10 Key Readiness Indicators for health information exchange. The survey results highlight the “disconnect among healthcare leaders in their efforts to define interoperability requirements across their health community.”

From the overview:

Hospitals. Are you ready or not? Concerned by an apparent lack of awareness of the challenges involved with exchanging health information, ECRI Institute and s2a conducted a survey of healthcare leaders. The survey, “10 Key Readiness Indicators for Exchange of Health Information,” consisted of 10 statements that represented increasing levels of complexity along the road to full health information exchange. For example, the first statement focused on the availability of electronic clinical lab results to referring physicians—one of the more simplistic and common forms of information exchange that also supports the Stage 1 Meaningful Use requirement of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for structured data reporting of lab results. On the other end of the spectrum, the last statement on the survey addressed the use of health information for analyzing and managing population health, which is one of the ultimate goals of leveraging EHRs/EMRs.

The survey results confirm that hospital leaders have started their journey towards successful health information exchange and consider it a high priority.

You can download the survey here.