Perception of Healthcare Professionals on Electronic Health Records and Health Information Exchange in Tertiary Hospitals in Southwest Nigeria

ABSTRACTElectronic Health Records (EHRs) and Health information exchanges have been promoted as policy priorities for improving the quality and efficiency of the health care system, largely through improved coordination. Meaningful use incentive payments continue to propel EHR adoption, however, participation in health information exchanges remains limited due to the challenges such as information privacy, unauthorized access, limited speed of electronic health information, interoperability problems with information system, information overload. Thus, this study assesses the perception of healthcare professional on the influence of Electronic Health Records and Health Information Exchange between Tertiary hospital in Southwest Nigeria. Cross-sectional research was adopted for the study because of the composition of the study participants. The study selected healthcare professionals cutting across 3 tertiary institutions in Southwest, Nigeria using stratified random sampling; 168 healthcare professionals in OAUTHC, Ile – Ife, 130 in UNIMED, Ondo and 86 healthcare professionals in FMC, Owo giving a total of 384 participants. Information was gathered with the use of google form closed ended questionnaire and analyzed with the aid of Statistical packages and Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.Findings revealed that majority of respondents (82.1%) believe that EHRs significantly enhance the quality of care and practice. These findings highlight the perceived benefits of EHRs in enhancing interoperability, accuracy, seamless information exchange, timely dissemination, care coordination, security, and Healthcare professionals have a positive perception of the impact of EHR on HIE, with high relative mean ranging from 0.9994 to 1.0022 across various parameters. The standard deviations, ranging from 0.81195 to 0.99337, indicate a consistent agreement among respondents. However, majority (97.9%) of healthcare professionals perceive the challenges affecting HIE which include limited interoperability, inadequate privacy and security measures, lack of trust, fragmented patient information, inadequate infrastructure, lack of regulatory barriers, and high costs. The positive coefficient (B = 0.224, P