The Impact of the Health Information Exchange System for the hospital management in Japan

Abstract

Recently Health Information Exchange (HIE) has been gradually spreading in Japan. In this study, the effect against the hospital management of the HIE named the Ajisai-net of Nagasaki prefecture in Japan was evaluated through investigations of both the number of the first visit patients and hospitalized patients. The first visit is classified into three types. The first type is the reserved first visit bringing the introduction letters, 2nd type is the non-reserved first visit bringing the introduction letters and 3rd type is non-reserved first visit not bringing the introduction letters. The total number of hospitalized patients was 12,237/32,398 (37.8%) on the first type, 8,764/ 24,549 (35.7%) on the second type and 1,277/7,167 (17.8%) on the third type, and there were significantly differences among 3 types. (p<0.01) The number of hospitalized patients of the reserved new patients bringing the introduction letters who had been registered to the Ajisai-net was 1,008/2,201(45.8%), significantly more than the number of hospitalized patients of any other 3 types of the first visit patients. (p<0.01) The number of the first visit patients registered to the Ajisai-net was also significantly more than that are not registered to the Ajisai-net. (p<0.01) The increase of the number of the new patients and newly hospitalized patients is the most important factor of the high hospital income in Japan. In conclusion, Japanese type of HIE has a positive effect of the Hospital management was showed in this study