International Comparison of Six Basic eHealth Indicators Across 14 Countries: An eHealth Benchmarking Study

Elske Ammenwerth; Georg Duftschmid; Zaid Al-Hamdan; Hala Bawadi; Ngai T. Cheung; Kyung-Hee Cho; Guillermo Goldfarb; Kemal H. Gülkesen; Nissim Harel; Michio Kimura; Önder Kırca; Hiroshi Kondoh; Sabine Koch; Hadas Lewy; Dara Mize; Sari Palojoki; Hyeoun-Ae Park; Christopher Pearce; Fernan G. B. de Quirós; Kaija Saranto; Christoph Seidel; Vivian Vimarlund; Martin C. Were; Johanna Westbrook; Chung P. Wong; Reinhold Haux; Christoph U. Lehmann

doi:10.1055/s-0040-1715796

Methods of Information in Medicine, Inhaltsverzeichnis

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Methods Inf Med 2020; 59(S 02): e46-e63
DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1715796

Original Article

International Comparison of Six Basic eHealth Indicators Across 14 Countries: An eHealth Benchmarking Study

Elske Ammenwerth

¹Institute of Medical Informatics, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology (UMIT), Hall in Tirol, Austria

,

Georg Duftschmid

²Section for Medical Information Management, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

,

Zaid Al-Hamdan

³Faculty of Nursing/WHO Collaborating Center, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan

,

Hala Bawadi

⁴Maternal and Child Health Nursing Department, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan

,

Ngai T. Cheung

⁵Hospital Authority, Hong Kong

,

Kyung-Hee Cho

⁶Seoul National University, Korea

,

Guillermo Goldfarb

⁷Medical Informatics, Hospital de Niños Ricardo Gutiérrez, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

,

Kemal H. Gülkesen

⁸Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, Medical Faculty, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

,

Nissim Harel

⁹Department of Computer Science, Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel

,

Michio Kimura

¹⁰Medical Informatics Department, School of Medicine, Hamamatsu University, Shizuoka, Japan

,

Önder Kırca

¹¹Department of Clinical Oncology, Memorial and Medstar Oncology Center, Antalya, Turkey

,

Hiroshi Kondoh

¹²Department of Medical Informatics, Tottori University Hospital, Yonago, Japan

,

Sabine Koch

¹³Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Health Informatics Centre, KarolinskaInstitutet, Stockholm, Sweden

,

Hadas Lewy

¹⁴Digital Health Ventures, Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel

,

Dara Mize

¹⁵Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States

,

Sari Palojoki

¹⁶Department of Health and Social Management, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland

,

Hyeoun-Ae Park

¹⁷College of Nursing, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

,

Christopher Pearce

¹⁸Director of Research, Outcome Health, Blackburn, Australia

,

Fernan G. B. de Quirós

¹⁹Department of Health Informatics, Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

,

Kaija Saranto

²⁰Department of Health and Social Management, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland

,

Christoph Seidel

²¹Division of eHealth, Digitalisation and Social Health Economy, Lower Saxony Ministry for Social Affairs, Health and Equal Opportunities, Hannover, Germany

,

Vivian Vimarlund

²²Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

,

Martin C. Were

²³Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, United States

,

Johanna Westbrook

²⁴Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Macquarie, Australia

,

Chung P. Wong

²⁵Hong Kong Society of Medical Informatics, Hong Kong

,

Reinhold Haux^*

²⁶Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics, TU Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School, Braunschweig, Germany

,

Christoph U. Lehmann^*

²⁷Clinical Informatics Center, Department of Pediatrics, Bioinformatics, and Population and Data Sciences, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, Texas, United States

› Institutsangaben

Abstract

Background Many countries adopt eHealth applications to support patient-centered care. Through information exchange, these eHealth applications may overcome institutional data silos and support holistic and ubiquitous (regional or national) information logistics. Available eHealth indicators mostly describe usage and acceptance of eHealth in a country. The eHealth indicators focusing on the cross-institutional availability of patient-related information for health care professionals, patients, and care givers are rare.

Objectives This study aims to present eHealth indicators on cross-institutional availability of relevant patient data for health care professionals, as well as for patients and their caregivers across 14 countries (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong as a special administrative region of China, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States) to compare our indicators and the resulting data for the examined countries with other eHealth benchmarks and to extend and explore changes to a comparable survey in 2017. We defined “availability of patient data” as the ability to access data in and to add data to the patient record in the respective country.

Methods The invited experts from each of the 14 countries provided the indicator data for their country to reflect the situation on August 1, 2019, as date of reference. Overall, 60 items were aggregated to six eHealth indicators.

Results Availability of patient-related information varies strongly by country. Health care professionals can access patients' most relevant cross-institutional health record data fully in only four countries. Patients and their caregivers can access their health record data fully in only two countries. Patients are able to fully add relevant data only in one country. Finland showed the best outcome of all eHealth indicators, followed by South Korea, Japan, and Sweden.

Conclusion Advancement in eHealth depends on contextual factors such as health care organization, national health politics, privacy laws, and health care financing. Improvements in eHealth indicators are thus often slow. However, our survey shows that some countries were able to improve on at least some indicators between 2017 and 2019. We anticipate further improvements in the future.

Keywords

health information exchange - health information systems - continuity of patient care - patient-centered care - eHealth - international health

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Referenzen

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