We would like to congratulate Dr. Saeede Eftekhari, one of our active members, on her recent publication in Management Science.
Impact of Health Information Exchange Adoption on Referral Patterns
Saeede Eftekhari
Tulane University
Management Science Department
Niam Yaraghi
University of Miami
Business Technology Department
Ram Gopal
University of Warwick
Information Systems & Management Group
Ram Ramesh
State University of New York at Buffalo
Management Science and Systems Department
ABSTRACT.
Efforts to promote Health Information Exchanges (HIE) on a nationwide scale are beset with major challenges and one of them is its meaningful use for both physicians and patients. Referrals potentially provide a context for the meaningful use of HIE and we are yet to understand how HIEs affect referrals. This research studies the impact of HIE on referral patterns. We establish that participation in an HIE network increases the referrals sent to and received from other HIE participants. We investigate this relationship using both econometric and network-analytic methods. While the econometric analysis focuses on the underlying associations between HIE adoption and referral patterns, the network analysis addresses the transformation process by which HIE adoption and referrals co-evolve over time. This study has significant implications for healthcare policy-making, development of innovative HIE business models, and management of healthcare organizations.
About Saeede Eftekhari
Saeede Eftekhari’s research focuses on healthcare network analytics and healthcare information technology, using methodological techniques including econometric modeling, social networks analysis, and data mining to analyze healthcare management problems and develop cost-effective solutions. She has published her research in ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS). She joined the Freeman School from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she earned her Ph.D. in management sciences and systems. She holds a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Isfahan University of Technology in Iran.