The likelihood of a patient being readmitted to a hospital was not significantly reduced when the hospital and skilled nursing facility used a health information exchange, according a Health Service Research study.
Researchers evaluated discharge data from a large academic medical center that was transferred to a skilled nursing facility between July 2013 and March 2017. Study authors also examined portal usage records from skilled nursing facilities with HIE access.
The decline in the likelihood of 30-day readmissions were not significantly different for patients in the HIE-enabled group and those without. Additionally, there was not a significant difference for shorter readmission windows.
"Emergent HIE use cases need to be better defined and leveraged for design and implementation that generates value in the context of post-acute transactions," the study authors concluded.