Evaluating the Impact on Quality and Costs of Regional Clinical Data Exchange Programs in New York State

Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Quality of Health Care; Health Care Costs

Treatments: Other: Health information technology and exchange

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00571376

20060550

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to measure the financial effects of health information technology and health information exchange in regional health information organizations in New York State.

Full description

In 2004, the federal government set an ambitious goal of ensuring that most Americans have electronic health records within 10 years and the presence of a widespread clinical information exchange capability will greatly facilitate this goal. Through HEAL NY, New York State is currently awarding millions of dollars in grants to support health information technology initiatives across the state through regional clinical information exchanges. The financial success of these initiatives is expected to result from improvements in health care quality and efficiency. However, whether these initiatives will be cost saving, as experts assert, and what the return-on-investments of these initiatives will be are unknown. Answering these questions will provide critical information to the nation as we progress towards a national health information network. We will conduct a multi-center financial evaluation of regional clinical information exchanges. The results of the financial evaluations proposed in this study will provide a framework and standardized methodology including metrics for financial evaluations of regional health information organizations and return-on-investment analyses from the perspectives of providers and payers. We will consider the financial effects as driven by changes in quality, safety, and efficiency.

The most advanced community we studied was Rochester, NY, and studying this community allowed us to measure the effects of health information technology and health information exchange on 3 major utilization outcomes (hospital admissions, hospital re-admissions, and repeat medical imaging).

Enrollment: 218,766 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients and health care providers participating in regional health information organizations or their affiliate institutions.

Exclusion criteria

• None

Trial design

218,766 participants in 2 patient groups

1

Description:

Those exposed to health information technology or health information exchange

Treatment:

Other: Health information technology and exchange

2

Description:

Those not exposed to health information technology or health information exchange