Title: Sustainability modelling of health information exchanges in dynamic environments

Authors: Abdulaziz Ahmed; Wenfei Shen; Mohammad T. Khasawneh

Addresses: Business Department, University of Minnesota Crookston, Crookston, MN 56716, USA ' Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York 13902, USA ' Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York 13902, USA

Abstract: Healthcare practitioners have realised that sharing patient data is beneficial, which can be accomplished by joining a healthcare information exchange (HIE) network. Many challenges confront those joining an HIE network, and one of the most serious is the network's financial sustainability. This paper develops three linear programming models to study the sustainability of an HIE network. Two types of agent are considered: the healthcare provider (HCP) and the HIE network owner. Model 1 aims to maximise the benefits for HCPs, while Models 2A and 2B are intended to maximise the benefits for HIE owners. The results of model 1 showed that the benefits for HIE owners and HCPs were positive. In models 2A and 2B, the benefits for HIE owners were sometimes negative because in some cases there were not enough joined HCPs. This study helps decision makers understand the sustainability of HIE networks in a dynamic environment.

Keywords: healthcare information exchange; HIE; linear programming; optimisation; sustainability; dynamic behaviour.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2019.104272

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2019 Vol.33 No.4, pp.413 - 434

Received: 07 Sep 2017
Accepted: 18 Feb 2018
Published online: 24 Dec 2019 *

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