Advancing Health Information Exchange (HIE) During Inter-hospital Transfer (IHT) to Improve Patient Outcomes

Sub-optimal transfer of clinical information during inter-hospital transfer (IHT, the transfer of patients between acute care hospitals) is common and can lead to patient harm. To address this problem, the investigators will use key stakeholder input to refine and implement an interoperable health information exchange platform that integrates with the electronic health record and improves the reliability of and access to necessary clinical information in three use cases involving transfer of patients between sending and receiving hospitals with varying levels of affiliation and health record integration. The investigators will assess the effect of this intervention on frequency of medical errors, evaluate the use and usability of this platform from the perspective of those that interact with it, and use these results to develop a dissemination plan to spread implementation and use of this platform across other similar institutions.

Study Overview

• Status: Enrolling by invitation
• Conditions: Gastrointestinal Diseases; Heart Failure; Infections; Urologic Diseases; Shock; Hematologic Diseases; Critical Illness; Rheumatic Diseases; Asthma; Renal Failure; Neurologic Disorder; COPD Exacerbation; Cardiac Event; Oncology Problem; Arrythmia; Renal Disease
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Health Information Exchange (HIE) platform

Detailed Description

The transfer of patients between acute care hospitals (inter-hospital transfer, IHT) is often undertaken to provide patients with needed specialized care that is unavailable at the transferring hospital. IHT occurs regularly, with over 100,000 Medicare patients undergoing IHT annually and with higher frequency among patients with select medical conditions (i.e., acute myocardial infarction), those who are critically ill, and those with multiple chronic conditions (MCC). Although all hospital-based care transitions expose patients to the risks of discontinuity of care, patients who undergo IHT are highly vulnerable to these risks given their illness severity and the fact that IHT involves transfer between providers, settings, and systems of care, thereby lacking potential safe-guards against potential gaps in communication.

The overall goals of this study are to leverage the investigators' extensive research experience in IHT and health information technology innovation, including an in-depth understanding of the essential clinical information required for effective HIE, to design, implement, and rigorously evaluate an intervention to improve HIE during IHT. The investigators propose to implement the intervention in 3 use cases with different levels of integration between sending and receiving hospitals. The platform will use existing data standards to ensure interoperability while also optimizing data visualization and workflow. The investigators will then evaluate the effects of the intervention on medical errors and adverse events, evaluate use and usability of the platform, and conduct a mixed methods evaluation to identify best practices for further refining, disseminating, implementing, and sustaining this intervention across different institutions. To achieve this, the Specific Aims of this study are:

Aim 1: To utilize user-centered design principles and prior knowledge and experience of essential information required during IHT to refine a currently functional inter-operable HIE platform that improves reliability of and access to necessary clinical information during IHT and to implement it in 3 use cases: hospitals within the same health system, hospitals in different systems that share a common EHR, and hospitals in different systems that use different EHRs.

Aim 2: To evaluate the impact of this intervention on clinician-reported medical errors; medical errors attributable to sub-optimal information exchange; adverse events; and other measures of patient safety and workflow, using interrupted time series methodology.

Aim 3: To evaluate the utilization and perceived usability of the HIE platform from the perspective of users who interact with the platform, including clinicians who transfer and accept IHT patients, clinicians at accepting hospitals who admit transferred patients, medical records personnel at transferring hospitals, and access center personnel at accepting hospitals; and identify facilitators and barriers to implementation.

Aim 4: To combine data on use, usability and barriers to implementation from end-users with input from steering committee members to develop a plan for further refinement of the platform and a toolkit for widespread adoption at MGB and dissemination to other similar organizations.

The proposed study will provide a novel, user-centered implementation and evaluation of HIE in order to improve the quality of care and patient outcomes during IHT, an understudied, high-risk care transition impacting a vulnerable patient group. This study includes a purposeful evaluation of IHT between hospitals with different levels of affiliation and EHR integration, in addition to rigorous evaluation of use and usability, and barriers and facilitators of implementation across different institutions to identify best practices for dissemination and implementation. The lessons learned will be used to inform successful and sustained adoption by other health care systems, thus broadly improving care provided to transferred patients.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 1006
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02115
      • Brigham & Women's Hospital

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Age greater than or equal to 18 years old
• Transferred from one of the 3 included transferring hospitals (Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital, South Shore Hospital, Milford Regional Medical Center)
• Admitted to the general medical, cardiology, oncology, and/or ICU services at Brigham and Women's Hospital

Exclusion Criteria:

• Age < 18 years old
• Transferred from a different acute care hospital than the 3 included hospitals
• Admitted through the ER
• Direct admission from home/clinic
• Admitted to a service other than general medicine, cardiology, oncology or ICU at Brigham and Women's Hospital

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Sequential Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Baseline; The baseline arm will include all included patient transfers from the 3 participating transfer hospitals to the 1 accepting hospital during the 1-year pre-intervention phase. They will not receive any intervention, but rather usual care
Experimental: Intervention; The intervention arm will include all included patient transfers from the 3 participating transfer hospitals to the 1 accepting hospital during the 1-year intervention phase. They will receive the intervention, which will include utilization of the developed health information exchange platform to transfer clinical information between transferring and accepting hospital. The intervention will not interact directly with the patient, but rather their clinical data.	Other: Health Information Exchange (HIE) platform; An improved health information exchange (HIE) platform will be developed at the start of the study with key stakeholder input. This platform will be implemented for use after baseline data collection, and will allow for improved data exchange between transferring and accepting hospital. We will allow for a 6-month wash-in period prior to intervention data collection.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Total clinician-reported medical errors	Collected via a survey of admitting clinicians 48-72 hours after patient transfer.	Up to 72 hours after transfer

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Clinician-reported medical errors attributable to poor information exchange	Collected via a survey of admitting clinicians 48-72 hours after patient transfer.	Up to 72 hours after transfer
Total clinician-reported adverse events	Collected via a survey of admitting clinicians 48-72 hours after patient transfer.	Up to 72 hours after transfer
Preventable clinician-reported adverse events	Collected via a survey of admitting clinicians 48-72 hours after patient transfer.	Up to 72 hours after transfer
Ameliorable clinician-reported adverse events	Collected via a survey of admitting clinicians 48-72 hours after patient transfer.	Up to 72 hours after transfer
Clinician-reported quality of clinical information available	Collected via a survey of admitting clinicians 48-72 hours after patient transfer.	Up to 72 hours after transfer
Length of stay after transfer	Collected from administrative data	From time-of-day and date of transfer to time-of-day and date of hospital discharge
Rapid response or ICU transfer within 72-hours of patient transfer	Collected from administrative data	Up to 72-hours after transfer
Time between acceptance of transfer to patient arrival	Collected from administrative data. From time documented that the patient was accepted for transfer until the time the patient arrives at the transferring hospital	Up to 3 days prior to transfer
Time between transferred patient arrival and entry of admission orders	Collected from administrative data. From time documented that the transferred patient arrived at the accepting hospital until the time that the admission orders were placed	Up to 24-hours after transfer

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Collaborators: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): November 1, 2022
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 22, 2025
• Study Completion (Estimated): June 30, 2027

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 23, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 29, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): July 5, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): January 23, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 21, 2026
• Last Verified: January 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Urogenital Diseases; Musculoskeletal Diseases; Pathologic Processes; Male Urogenital Diseases; Female Urogenital Diseases; Female Urogenital Diseases and Pregnancy Complications; Heart Diseases; Disease Attributes; Connective Tissue Diseases; Immune System Diseases; Respiratory Tract Diseases; Digestive System Diseases; Lung Diseases; Bronchial Diseases; Lung Diseases, Obstructive; Respiratory Hypersensitivity; Hypersensitivity, Immediate; Hypersensitivity; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms; Skin and Connective Tissue Diseases; Hemic and Lymphatic Diseases; Heart Failure; Gastrointestinal Diseases; Asthma; Cardiovascular Diseases; Urologic Diseases; Critical Illness; Infections; Renal Insufficiency; Shock; Kidney Diseases; Nervous System Diseases; Hematologic Diseases; Arrhythmias, Cardiac; Rheumatic Diseases; Investigative Techniques; Epidemiologic Methods; Data Collection; Records; Medical Records Systems, Computerized; Medical Records; Electronic Health Records; Health Information Exchange
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2022P001284

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: Individual Participant data will not be shared with any researchers outside of this study. All data will only be shared in aggregate to any member outside the study team.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No