Improvement in quality and patient safety outcomes have been at the forefront of the United States healthcare system. Policies advocate for implementing different electronic health records (EHR) levels to support this effort. Several studies have demonstrated mixed results on the impact of EHR on quality and safety outcomes. Our study delves deeper into gaining an understanding of this influence on hospitals that have adopted various levels of EHR, especially intermediate and comprehensive. Using a longitudinal study design for general acute care hospitals within the U.S., we examine the relationship between intermediate and comprehensive EHR on quality (readmission rates for pneumonia and COPD) and safety (adverse incident rate) using a random-effects model. Our national sample consisted of 7,084 hospital-year observations from 2014-2016. Hospitals with intermediate EHR had about an 8% decrease in 30-day readmission for Pneumonia compared to the hospitals with no intermediate EHR, while comprehensive EHR experienced a decrease of about 1% in adverse incident rate compared to hospitals that did not have comprehensive EHR. Our study buttresses prior findings that simply having EHR may not have an effect on outcomes, and a more targeted, meaningful use would need to be ensured.
Soumya Upadhyay (Sun,) studied this question.