Health practitioners’ perceptions towards Health Information Exchange (HIE): a case study of a boutique rest home in New Zealand

Abstract

Health Information Exchange (HIE) is the way in which health practitioners communicate and exchange health information, through systems that enable such communication. Lower level HIE systems (phones, faxes, handwritten notes) cause complexity in HIE process, while higher level HIE systems (IT-enhanced) improve effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare delivery, by centralising the information source for all practitioners. After decades of transformations, the healthcare industry is finally preparing to introduce ITenhanced HIE into the practice. Being a relatively new topic in health informatics, there are no dominant studies that enquired the perspectives of health practitioners for the adoption of these IT-enhanced HIE systems into their workplace. This thesis is a qualitative study which takes place in the case of boutique rest home in New Zealand. Health practitioners involved in healthcare delivery in the setting were interviewed to explore the problems they experienced with the traditional HIE systems the perception of forthcoming adoption of HIE revolution. As literatures suggest, this study also found that lower level HIE systems are associated with problems of quality, accessibility of information and increased workload. Also in accordance to the literatures, the health practitioners perceived that higher level HIE systems improved both effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare delivery. In extension to the works of Walker et al. (2005), this thesis further suggest that the health practitioners may distinguish the effects between effectiveness and efficiency. In the current study, the perceptions of health practitioners were different to each other in that they differently prioritised effectiveness over efficiency and vice versa. While understanding the perceptions of health practitioners in this context helps both the academia and government, it is the industrialists who will experience immediate benefits. As more HIE systems are being developed, it is critical that the systems meet the wants and needs of health practitioners, as it is them who will be using the systems to deliver our healthcare. As a result, the industrialists may use the results of this thesis to design and promote their products to better suit the requirements of each health practitioners.