Original Article

Health Information Exchange in the ED: What Do ED Clinicians Think?

Authors: Cathy L. Melvin, PhD, MPH, Steven H. Saef, MD, MSCR, Holly O. Pierce, MS, Jihad S. Obeid, MD, Christine M. Carr, MD

Abstract

Objectives: Our regional health information exchange (HIE), known as Carolina eHealth Alliance (CeHA)-HIE, serves all major hospital systems in our region and is accessible to emergency department (ED) clinicians in those systems. We wanted to understand reasons for low CeHA-HIE utilization and explore options for improving it.

Methods: We implemented a 24-item user survey among ED clinician users of CeHA-HIE to investigate their perceptions of system usability and functionality, the quality of the information available through CeHA-HIE, the value of clinician time spent using CeHA-HIE, the ease of use of CeHA-HIE, and approaches for improving CeHA-HIE.

Results: Of the 231 ED clinicians surveyed, 51 responded, and among those, 48 reported having used CeHA-HIE and completed the survey.

Conclusions: Results show most ED clinicians believed that CeHA-HIE was easy to use and added value to their work, but they also desired better integration of information available from CeHA-HIE into their system’s electronic medical record.

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