The adoption of health information exchange (HIE) technology continues to lag behind the adoption rates in countries in Scandinavia and Oceania, despite encouragement and development dollars from the U.S. government, according to research firm IHS Technology.
Last year, the U.S. had the largest market for HIE, and the U.S. government lavished about $2 billion in stimulus money since 2009 to advance the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act and the advancement of meaningful use criteria.
More than half of the $2 billion has been spent on HIE projects so far, but development of the healthcare IT infrastructure in the U.S. has not been uniform across different states and regions, IHS said. Moreover, the cost of building and expanding HIE networks has grown faster in the U.S. than in other countries.
A large part of the U.S. funding has been steered toward the development of electronic health records (EHR) in the U.S. because this infrastructure must be established before an HIE network can be built, the company said.
