Physician leadership and health information exchange: literature review

BACKGROUND: Notwithstanding two decades of health information exchange (HIE) failures across the country, the US government has incorporated HIE into Meaningful Use Stage 2, which, in turn, has sparked renewed physicians’ interest in HIE. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper was to conduct a literature review to understand how physician leadership might have assisted in supporting organisations in achieving HIE collaboration. METHOD: The authors conducted a review of the literature about HIE and physician challenges from 2009 to present to identify peer-reviewed publications which might apply. Reviewers abstracted each publication for predetermined issues related to physician leadership. Themes were identified based on the literature findings. RESULTS: The literature review demonstrated four important themes (physician leader characteristics) that can assist in bridging the gap and creating collaboration in an HIE. The themes found in this study were: trust among physicians, promote involvement and buy-in, infuse value proposition and competition. CONCLUSION: This paper contributes to the healthcare literature by conducting a literature review of the existing literature of surrounding HIE implementation and physician leaders. Specifically, we sought to gain insight into the change process and how physician leaders have demonstrated an impact on the process. This research is the first of its kind to synthesise leadership issues related to HIE and specifically explore the role of physician leader impact on HIE.