This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Electronic health records had little effect on quality of care
Jones SS. Am J Manag Care. 2010;16:11-26.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Data from a recent study conducted by the RAND Corporation have shown that using electronic health records in hospitals only had a limited effect on the quality of medical care.
Hospitals that only used basic electronic health records (EHRs) showed a higher increase in quality of care for patients with heart failure, but hospitals that upgraded to advanced EHRs did not see a similar increase. Also, EHRs were not related to higher quality care in patients being treated for myocardial infarction or pneumonia.
The study included 2,021 hospitals, and the findings were published online in the American Journal of Managed Care. The researchers determined which hospitals used EHRs, and then examined the hospitals using 17 measures of quality for heart failure, myocardial infarction and pneumonia. The study took place from 2003 to 2007.
During the study period, the number of hospitals using EHRs, either a basic version or an advanced version, rose from 24% in 2003 to 38% in 2006. The quality of care was generally improved for the three illnesses studied. The largest increase in quality was in patients with heart failure who were being treated at hospitals with basic EHRs.
However, the quality did not improve faster in hospitals that had newly adopted basic EHRs than in hospitals that did not adopt the technology. At hospitals that had newly adopted basic EHRs, the quality of care for myocardial infarction and heart failure improved less than quality of care at hospitals that did not have EHRs.
EHRs had no effect on quality of care for patients with pneumonia.
 |
Follow InfectiousDiseaseNews.com on Twitter. |