A study of hospital emergency departments has found that hospitals can significantly improve both the quality of care and operational efficiency when their physicians access a patient’s medical records in the health information exchange (HIE).
Specifically, the study—based on the HIE operated by HealthlinkNY—showed that HIE use reduced the patient’s length of stay in the ER and in-patient stay; the likelihood that the patient would be readmitted to an ER within 30 days; and the number of physicians who needed to examine the patient.
