Biography

Dr. Joshua Vest is a health services researcher with an area of interest in the organizational determinants and effectiveness of health information technology and systems. Most of his work is focused on the adoption, utilization, and policy issues of technologies that facilitate the sharing of patient information between different organizations (referred to as health information exchange). His research on health information technology has appeared in Health Affairs, Health Care Management Review, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, the International Journal of Medical Informatics, and others. His 50+ peer-reviewed publications have employed a variety of research techniques from large scale database analyses, to geographical information system mapping, to survey research, to qualitative focus groups and interviews.

As a former local public health practitioner, Dr. Vest has a particular interest in effective public health information systems. He has peer-reviewed publications that examined the role of information technology governance structures on local public health departments' adoption of information technology and systems, the structure of state and local public health information systems, as well as an evaluation of email intervention to improve disease notification efforts.

Research Interests

  • Health information technology
  • Health information exchange
  • Adoption, implementation, usage, impact
  • Organizational theory
  • Public health systems and services

Courses Taught

  • Contemporary Health Issues
  • PhD Seminar in Contemporary Health Policy & Management Challenges
  • Population & Public Health

Selected Publications

  1. Vest JR, Ancker JS. Health information exchange in the wild: association between organizational capability and perceived utility of clinical event notifications in ambulatory and community care. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. In press. doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocw040
  2. Vest JR. Geography of community health information organization activity in the US: implications for the effectiveness of health information exchange. Health Care Management Review. In press.
  3. Vest JR and Kash BA. Differing strategies to meet information sharing needs: the publicly supported community health information exchange versus health systems’ enterprise health information exchanges. The Milbank Quarterly. 94(1): 77-108; 2016. doi: 10.1111/1468-0009.12180
  4. Vest JR and Abramson EL. Organizational uses of health information exchange to change cost and utilization outcomes: a typology from a multi-site qualitative analysis. In press.
  5. Jung HY, Vest JR, Unruh MA, Kern LM, Kaushal R, for the HITEC Investigators. Use of health information exchange and repeat imaging costs. Journal of the American College of Radiology. 12(12 Part B): 1364-1370; 2015. doi: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jacr.2015.09.010. PMID: 26614881
  6. Vest JR, Jung HY, Ostrovsky A, Das LT, McGinty GB. Effectiveness of image sharing technologies on imaging utilization: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the American College of Radiology. 12(12 Part B): 1371-1379; 2015. doi: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jacr.2015.09.014. PMID: 26614882
  7. Jung HY, Unruh MA, Kaushal R, Vest JR. Growth of New York physician participation in Meaningful Use of electronic health records was variable, 2011-12. Health Affairs. 34(6): 1035-1043; 2015. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2014.1189. PMID:26056210
  8. Rahurkar S, Vest JR, Menachemi N. Despite the spread of health information exchange, there is little evidence of impact on cost, use, and quality. Health Affairs. 34(3):477-483; 2015. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0729. PMID:25732499
  9. Richardson JE, Vest JR, Green CM, Kern LM, Kaushal R and the HITEC investigators. A Needs Assessment of Health Information Technology for Improving Care Coordination in Patient-Centered Medical Homes. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 22(4):815-820; 2015. doi:10.1093/jamia/ocu039. PMID:25796597
  10. Vest JR, Kaushal R, Silver MD, Hentel K, Kern LM for the HITEC Investigators. Health information exchange and the frequency of repeat medical imaging. American Journal of Managed Care. 20(11 Spec No. 17):eSP16-eSP24; 2014. PMID:25811815
  11. Kierkegaard P, Kaushal R, Vest JR. Patient information retrieval in multiple care settings: Examining methods of exchange in emergency departments, primary care practices, and public health clinics? American Journal of Managed Care. 20(11 Spec No. 17): SP494-SP501; 2014. PMID:25811823