Disadvantages Of Rhois

Regional Health Information Organizations (RHOIs) are part of a larger initiative to find innovative means of controlling and streamlining healthcare costs. The concept of RHOIs gained popularity as a means to support the role of health information technology (HIT) in improving efficiency, safety, and quality of care (Adler-Milstein, McAfee, Bates, & Jha, 2008). However, RHOIs continue to be plagued with concerns, including a high failure rate and inability to remain financially viable (Adler-Milstein, Bates, & Jha, 2009). Therefore, ambiguity follows the real value of RHOIs and the role of RHOIs in future HIT development. The purpose of this paper is to explore RHOIs across the continuum of advantages and disadvantages as well as barriers

This was accomplished by forming a foundation for health information exchange (HIE) under the umbrella of the national health information network (NHIN), a public and a private venture that provides protocols for HIE and is lead by the United States coordinator for HIT (“NHIN”, 2016). Several advantages poised RHOIs for success over previously attempted similar efforts, primarily the attention and promotion of public safety, government interests, and the boom of Internet affordability and accessibility (Maffei, Burciago, & Dunn, 2009). Despite these advantages, RHOIs struggle to prevail against a variety of barriers, causing a re-evaluation of the value and benefit to providing RHOIs as a local service to healthcare

For example, the capacity of RHOIs, so far, has proven to be limited to clinical information like test results and inpatient information, failing to include other pertinent medical areas such as pharmacies (Adler-Milstein et al., 2009). Also, RHOIs struggle to secure financing that allows long-term viability (Adler-Milstein et al., 2009). Additionally, the development of functioning RHOIs has been slow, with many planned for RHOIs failing to move past the planning phase of operation (Adler-Milstein et al.,