In most cases, the U.S. health care system does not provide incentives for physicians or hospitals to share clinical data with other health care providers, raising barriers to widespread adoption of the technology, Computerworld reports.
Charles Jaffe -- CEO of Health Level 7, which develops data standards for health care organizations -- said, "The problem we have in this country is a lack of business reasons for integrating." He added, "What is the business case for two competing hospitals to share data? None."
For example, five major hospitals in San Diego held a series of meetings about three years ago to consider sharing information stored in their respective EHR systems.
However, the hospitals decided not to pursue the plan because economic benefits were inadequate.
Joshua Lee, medical director of information services at the University of California-San Diego Medical Center, said, "The financial and oversight responsibility would fall on the medical centers, even though it's a very intangible benefit to the medical centers."
Although studies show that EHRs, computer physician order entry and other technology applications can improve the quality of health care, health care providers generally are not compensated for improvements to care, according to John Quinn, chief technology officer for HL7.
John Halamka, CIO at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said, "The provider bears the cost, but most of the benefits accrue to other parties," particularly insurers and other health care payers.
Shaun Grannis, a medical informatics researcher at the Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis, said that Regenstrief is working to develop an economic model for health information exchanges that would be sustainable over the long term, but he said that such projects continue to rely on "a patchwork of funding" (Mitchell, Computerworld, 7/14).