EHRs And Communication Result In Better Patient Outcomes
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
Two studies confirm using an EHR system and increased provider communication lead to better patient outcomes, specifically for those suffering from hypertension and diabetes
A study conducted by the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute in Palo Alto, CA collected data on nearly 65,000 patients that entered a Northern California group practice in 2010 because of diabetes or hypertension. Researchers monitored the number of internal messages, e-messages, and days to wait for an appointment and found all of these to be good indications of the measure of patient care and outcomes.
Practices with more in-person visits with patients had better blood pressure control in those with hypertension. As the researchers found, communication was key in improving patient outcomes.
"We were looking for ways to leverage the amount of operational information in a practice's EHR and find measurements of the process of care," said Ming Tai-Seale, Ph.D., MPH, a senior staff scientist and lead author on the study. "We were pleasantly surprised to see we could do that.”
The other study, as EHR Intelligence reports, was an unrelated study of Kaiser Permanente patients which revealed better outcomes for diabetic patients when physicians used EHRs. These researchers found a reduction of the number of emergency room visits after the records of diabetic patients were introduced to the EHR system. They found that patients visited the emergency room 29 fewer times per 1,000 patients and were hospitalized 13 fewer times per 1,000 patients annually after the implementation.
“Using the electronic health record in the outpatient setting improved the quality of care in ways that cumulatively resulted in fewer negative events,” said Mary Reed, DrPH, staff scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif., and the study’s lead author. “A reduction in the number of emergency department visits represents not just improvements in diabetes care, but the cumulative effect of the EHR across many different care pathways and conditions.”
Marc G. Jaffe, MD, a study co-author and Kaiser Permanente endocrinologist in South San Francisco said, “This study demonstrates that when doctors and patients use an EHR, good things happen. The current study adds to our understanding by describing how an EHR like KP HealthConnect can help doctors keep patients healthy when used as part of an integrated care delivery system.”
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