Challenges and Opportunities of Health Information Exchange (HIE) From Health Consumers' Perspective

Abstract

The implementation of HIE depends on a number of entities and one of the key participants is health consumers. All potential gains of HIE cannot be achieved without consumers' favorable beliefs and support. However, little is known about the factors affecting consumers to endorse electronic information exchange between healthcare organizations. The primary objective of this article is to identify how and why patients would support HIE used by healthcare providers. The author has conducted an online questionnaire-based survey in the U.S. This study has shown that perceived value of HIE is significantly related to consumers HIE supportive intention. Moreover, perceived value fully mediates the effects of perceived benefit and cost of HIE implementation on consumer tendency to endorse HIE. The findings also provide evidence to highlight that consumers' attitude toward exchange model moderates the relationship between value perception and intention to support HIE. Relying on the results, this study offers several practical and theoretical contributions.