Health information exchange among US hospitals

To determine the proportion of US hospitals engaged in health information exchange (HIE) with unaffiliated providers and to identify key hospital-level and market-level factors associated with participating in exchange.

Using the 2009 American Hospital Association Information Technology survey, supplemented by Dartmouth Atlas, Area Resource File, and other national data, we examined which hospitals participated in regional efforts to electronically exchange clinical data.

We used logistic regression models to determine hospital-level characteristics and market-level characteristics associated with hospitals' likelihood of participating in HIE.

We found that 10.7% of US hospitals engaged in HIE with unaffiliated providers. In communities where exchange occurred, for-profit hospitals and those with a small market share were far less likely to engage in HIE than nonprofit hospitals or those with a larger market share. Hospitals in more concentrated markets were more likely to exchange and hospitals in markets with higher Medicare spending were less likely to exchange.

At the start of implementation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, only a small minority of US hospitals electronically exchange clinical data with unaffiliated providers. Health information exchange is a key part of reforming the healthcare system, and factors related to competitiveness may be holding some providers back.