Implementing new EHRs has little impact, good or bad, on care quality
Accreditation Insider, August 2, 2016
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Accreditation Insider!
Anyone who’s had to upgrade a computer system can tell you it’s never as easy as advertised. While for a personal system this may just lead to some frustration, in a healthcare setting those complications have the potential to be life threatening.
That was the theory until a new study published in BMJ found that changing electronic health record (EHR) systems has a negligible short-term effect on readmission and mortality rates. The study compared readmission and mortality rates six months before and after a hospital had big EHR change, looking at data from 26,000 patient admissions.
“We observed no overall negative association between short-term inpatient outcomes among Medicare enrollees and EHR implementation in a sample of 17 hospitals,” the authors write. “Our findings should be reassuring to hospitals and physicians who are considering or planning the implementation of EHRs.”
The authors had originally hypothesized that EHR implementation would have a negative effect on patient care due to workflow disruption. In their conclusion, they speculated that clinical resiliency and advanced planning among hospitals might go a long way to prevent disruption.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Accreditation Insider!
Related Products
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Don't forget the three checks in medication administration
- Note similarities and differences between HCPCS, CPT® codes
- Complications from immobility by body system
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- Q&A: Primary, principal, and secondary diagnoses
- The consequences of an incomplete medical record
- Differentiate between types of wound debridement
- Nursing responsibilities for managing pain
- Practice the six rights of medication administration
- ICD-10-CM coma, stroke codes require more specific documentation
- E-mailed
-
- Correctly bill ancillary bedside procedures in addition to the room rate
- Q&A: Utilization Review Committee Membership
- Q&A: Bill blood administration the same way for inpatient and outpatient accounts
- Q&A: A second look at encephalopathy as integral to seizures/CVA
- Performing a SWOT analysis
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- Know the medical gas cylinder storage requirements
- Intravenous therapy guidelines
- Coding, billing, and documentation tips for teaching physicians, interns, residents, and students
- Coding tip: Watch for different codes for SI joint injections
- Searched