EHRs Improve ICU Care

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

According to a study published by the American College of Chest Physicians' journal, EHRs have the potential to improve patient treatment in intensive care units.

According to iHealth Beat, researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine studied the effects of EHRs on ICU quality of care by reviewing charts for patients at a surgical ICU from 2009 to 2013. They excluded data from 2011, when the unit transitioned to an EHR.

A press release explained “significant reductions in central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and surgical intensive care unit (SICU) mortality rates after implementation of electronic health records (EHR). The study found no significant impact on length of stay, Clostridium, difficile colitis rates, or readmission rates after adoption of an EHR system.”

Basically, researchers found that, after implementing an EHR, the number of coded diagnoses rose from 17.8 to 20.8, mortality rates fell by 28 percent, and central line-associated bloodstream infection rates fell by 85 percent.

Fierce EMR writes that although this research appears to be a success, simply using an EHR does not mean that patient care in an ICU will automatically be improved, especially if the EHR is not specially designed to do so. In fact, many EHRs were originally designed to improve billing rather than patient outcomes.

“Considering the large investment into electronic health records and the high costs associated with ICU care, it's important to develop EHRs that improve ICU quality of care,” the researchers concluded.