Electronic connectivity between hospital pairs: impact on emergency department-related utilization.

J Am Med Inform Assoc

US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, Washington, DC 20201, United States.

Published: December 2023

AI Article Synopsis

  • The study aimed to analyze whether health information exchange (HIE) among hospitals leads to reduced visits to emergency departments (EDs) for patients with multiple encounters.
  • Researchers combined Medicare claims data and hospital participation information to classify patient encounters and assess outcomes like repeat imaging and hospital admissions.
  • While patients returning to the same hospital showed lower utilization rates, HIE did not consistently correlate with reduced repeat imaging; it did reduce hospital admissions after treat-and-release visits but increased admissions after discharges.

Article Abstract

Objective: To use more precise measures of which hospitals are electronically connected to determine whether health information exchange (HIE) is associated with lower emergency department (ED)-related utilization.

Materials And Methods: We combined 2018 Medicare fee-for-service claims to identify beneficiaries with 2 ED encounters within 30 days, and Definitive Healthcare and AHA IT Supplement data to identify hospital participation in HIE networks (HIOs and EHR vendor networks). We determined whether the 2 encounters for the same beneficiary occurred at: the same organization, different organizations connected by HIE, or different organizations not connected by HIE. Outcomes were: (1) whether any repeat imaging occurred during the second ED visit; (2) for beneficiaries with a treat-and-release ED visit followed by a second ED visit, whether they were admitted to the hospital after the second visit; (3) for beneficiaries discharged from the hospital followed by an ED visit, whether they were admitted to the hospital.

Results: In adjusted mixed effects models, for all outcomes, beneficiaries returning to the same organization had significantly lower utilization compared to those going to different organizations. Comparing only those going to different organizations, HIE was not associated with lower levels of repeat imaging. HIE was associated with lower likelihood of hospital admission following a treat-and-release ED visit (1.83 percentage points [-3.44 to -0.21]) but higher likelihood of admission following hospital discharge (2.78 percentage points [0.48-5.08]).

Discussion: Lower utilization for beneficiaries returning to the same organization could reflect better access to information or other factors such as aligned incentives.

Conclusion: HIE is not consistently associated with utilization outcomes reflecting more coordinated care in the ED setting.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10746309PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocad204DOI Listing

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