The Three Types of Health Information Exchanges And Why You Need to Know
Posted on Mar. 20, 2024 / Subscribe 0
Contributed by Michelle Suitor (HIE Chair) and Billy Caughey (HIE Chair Elect)
Health information exchanges (HIE) were created to enable healthcare providers and patients to securely access patient information [1]. Access to this information is necessary for providers and patients to work together to make informed decisions about the patient’s care. HIEs, like patient care, can take many forms. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all. The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the different types of exchanges.
Directed Exchange
A patient’s information is often decentralized in disparate silos Typically, several providers across several institutions can see a patient. For a provider to have the complete patient picture, organizations will need to work together to share information. Once information is shared, teams can work together to create the most complete patient picture possible. This type of exchange is known as a directed exchange.
In this type of exchange, provider organizations share information securely through various methods. One example of this is two providers, who know and trust each other, sharing information via secure email. According to Wheel, some examples of this type of exchange are to deliver healthcare metrics and quality outcomes with CMS and immunization records with public health organizations [2].
Query-Based Exchange
There are scenarios where patient care doesn’t lend itself to thoughtful planning. For instance, healthcare providers in emergency scenarios do not have the luxury of the time-intensive process of contacting other providers, sharing information, and consulting with teams to make informed decisions [2]. In these situations, providers have to make decisions with limited data rather than the most complete picture. In order to solve this, HIEs can query other healthcare organizations to obtain disparate records and aggregate them into a single document. This type of exchange is known as a query-based exchange.
This type of exchange works similarly to requesting information from a database. In order to extract information from a database, an end user develops a query to collect specific information from various tables. The resulting table contains the information desired by the user. Providers, similar to the database user, can query patient information such as imaging results, prescriptions, etc. to understand better the patient they are working with.
Consumer Mediated Exchange
Patients are becoming more interested in participating in their healthcare. One way they participate is through patient portals. By using these secure portals, patients can review their healthcare records. Patient portals, and other consumer facing portals, are forms of consumer mediate exchanges.
This type of exchange works when patients are willing to actively participate in their own healthcare. Wheel suggests consumer mediated exchanges empower patients in the following ways: giving other providers vital health information, finding or fixing missing or inaccurate information, and monitoring and tracking their health care. The goal is for patients to have increased satisfaction and quality of care to achieve improved health outcomes and goals. [2]
Conclusion
As health information exchanges become more prevalent, it is important to understand which type of exchange is being discussed. Each type of exchange has its place and direct impact on patient healthcare outcomes. In order to improve health information exchange, all the types of exchanges need to be improved!
Citations
2: https://www.wheel.com/companies-blog/what-is-health-information-exchange-hie.
0 Comments