Usage of Health Information Exchange (HIE) Technologies

New York State has awarded grants to several regional health information exchange
organizations (RHIOs), organizations established to create the technical and policy
infrastructure needed to exchange health data between providers, payers, and public health
agencies within a particular geographic region, to build an interoperable system for people
to manage their own health information. Two of these grant recipients are the Brooklyn
Health Information Exchange (BHIX) and Long Island Patient Information Xchange (LIPIX).

Since no off-the shelf technology currently exists to create such a system, BHIX is working
with a commercial vendor to develop a unique system that is tailored toward the needs of
their consumers and providers, while LIPIX is developing their own unique system in-house.
Both BHIX's and LIPIX's interoperable personal health management systems will offer various
features to consumers and providers in their community. Consumers may be able to perform
tasks such as viewing their lab results, scheduling an appointment, or sending a message
directly to their physician through a SMS. Conversely, the PHR can also allow physicians to
engage in communications with their patient, release data to their patient(s) (e.g. lab test
result); and view patient inputted-data.

The usage patterns of these personal health managements systems is not well understood
(Ralson et al., 2009; Kim et al., 2007). Understanding consumers and providers' use of these
interoperable systems can help aid in improving current systems and developing future
systems.

Specific Aims

The specific aims of this study are to describe the usage of BHIX's and LIPIX's novel
interoperable personal health management systems, specifically:

1. To quantify adoption of and frequency of use of novel technological platforms designed
to give consumers (patients) access to RHIO-based health information exchange (HIE)
data;

2. To quantify usage of HIE-specific data elements within these platforms;

3. To explore associations between usage and user demographics/clinical characteristics;

4. To explore trends in usage over time.

Inclusion Criteria:

- Consumers: Consumers (patients or their designated proxies)who are 18 years of age
or older and who have registered for either BHIX's personal health record system or
LIPIX's secure messaging system.

- Providers: Healthcare Providers who are authorized to view Health Information
Exchange data of BHIX or LIPIX.

Exclusion Criteria:

- Anyone that does not fall into the above inclusion category.