Paper ID
1808
Paper Type
full
Description
Health information exchange (HIE) is presumed to reduce medical expenditure and enhance operational efficiency by facilitating information sharing across healthcare providers, but mixed results have been found. We explore the role of physician agency in determining the value of HIE and focus on two important medical expenditures of a hospitalization episode (test expenditure and medication expenditure) and length of stay. Employing a natural experiment and the discharge data of a hospital, we find negative direct effects of availability of HIE on test expenditure and length of stay. We also find its negative externality on medication expenditure, such that more patients having access to HIE in a department would increase the medication expenditure of patients in the same department. We posit that the negative externality is caused by income loss but could be mitigated through efficiency improvements. Our analyses confirm our theoretical hypotheses. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Recommended Citation
Zhou, Fang; Wang, Qiu-Hong; and Teo, Hock Hai, "Examining the Theoretical Mechanisms Underlying Health Information Exchange Impact on Healthcare Outcomes: A Physician Agency Perspective" (2019). ICIS 2019 Proceedings. 5.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2019/is_health/is_health/5
Examining the Theoretical Mechanisms Underlying Health Information Exchange Impact on Healthcare Outcomes: A Physician Agency Perspective
Health information exchange (HIE) is presumed to reduce medical expenditure and enhance operational efficiency by facilitating information sharing across healthcare providers, but mixed results have been found. We explore the role of physician agency in determining the value of HIE and focus on two important medical expenditures of a hospitalization episode (test expenditure and medication expenditure) and length of stay. Employing a natural experiment and the discharge data of a hospital, we find negative direct effects of availability of HIE on test expenditure and length of stay. We also find its negative externality on medication expenditure, such that more patients having access to HIE in a department would increase the medication expenditure of patients in the same department. We posit that the negative externality is caused by income loss but could be mitigated through efficiency improvements. Our analyses confirm our theoretical hypotheses. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.