Health Care Worker Usage of Large-Scale Health Information Exchanges in Japan: User-Level Audit Log Analysis Study

Over 200 health information exchanges (HIEs) are currently operational in Japan. The most common feature of HIEs is remote on-demand viewing or searching of aggregated patient health data from multiple institutions. However, the usage of this feature by individual users and institutions remains unknown.

This study aims to understand usage of the on-demand patient data viewing feature of large-scale HIEs by individual health care workers and institutions in Japan.

We conducted audit log analyses of large-scale HIEs. The research subjects were HIEs connected to over 100 institutions and with over 10,000 patients. Each health care worker's profile and audit log data for HIEs were collected. We conducted four types of analyses on the extracted audit log. First, we calculated the ratio of the number of days of active HIE use for each hospital-affiliated doctor account. Second, we calculated cumulative monthly usage days of HIEs by each institution in financial year (FY) 2021/22. Third, we calculated each facility type's monthly active institution ratio in FY2021/22. Fourth, we compared the monthly active institution ratio by medical institution for each HIE and the proportion of cumulative usage days by user type for each HIE.

We identified 24 HIEs as candidates for data collection and we analyzed data from 7 HIEs. Among hospital doctors, 93.5% (7326/7833) had never used HIEs during the available period in FY2021/22, while 19 doctors used them at least 30% of days. The median (IQR) monthly active institution ratios were 0.482 (0.470-0.487) for hospitals, 0.243 (0.230-0.247) for medical clinics, and 0.030 (0.024-0.048) for dental clinics. In 51.9% (1781/3434) of hospitals, the cumulative monthly usage days of HIEs was 0, while in 26.8% (921/3434) of hospitals, it was between 1 and 10, and in 3% (103/3434) of hospitals, it was 100 or more. The median (IQR) monthly active institution ratio in medical institutions was 0.511 (0.487-0.529) for the most used HIE and 0.109 (0.0927-0.117) for the least used. The proportion of cumulative usage days of HIE by user type was complex for each HIE, and no consistent trends could be discerned.

In the large-scale HIEs surveyed in this study, the overall usage of the on-demand patient data viewing feature was low, consistent with past official reports. User-level analyses of audit logs revealed large disparities in the number of days of HIE use among health care workers and institutions. There were also large disparities in HIE use by facility type or HIE; the percentage of cumulative HIE usage days by user type also differed by HIE. This study indicates the need for further research into why there are large disparities in demand for HIEs in Japan as well as the need to design comprehensive audit logs that can be matched with other official datasets.