Electronic Health Records Associated With Lower Hospital Mortality After Systems Have Time To Mature

Authors

Sunny C. Lin, Portland State UniversityFollow
Ashish K. Jha, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Julia Adler-Milstein, University of California, San FranciscoFollow

Published In

Health Affairs

Document Type

Citation

Publication Date

2018

Abstract

Evidence linking electronic health record (EHR) adoption to better care is mixed. More nuanced measures of adoption, particularly those that capture the common incremental approach of adding functions over time in US hospitals, could help elucidate the relationship between adoption and outcomes. We used data for the period 2008–13 to assess the relationship between EHR adoption and thirty-day mortality rates. We found that baseline adoption was associated with a 0.11-percentage-point higher rate per function. Over time, maturation of the baseline functions was associated with a 0.09-percentage-point reduction in mortality rate per year per function. Each new function adopted in the study period was associated with a 0.21-percentage-point reduction in mortality rate per year per function. We observed effect modification based on size and teaching status, with small and nonteaching hospitals realizing greater gains. These findings suggest that national investment in hospital EHRs should yield improvements in mortality rates, but achieving them will take time.

Description

© 2018 Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.

*At the time of publication Sunny C. Lin was affiliated with the University of Michigan

Locate the Document

https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.1658

DOI

10.1377/hlthaff.2017.1658

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/32411

Citation Details

Lin, S. C., Jha, A. K., & Adler-Milstein, J. (2018). Electronic health records associated with lower hospital mortality after systems have time to mature. Health Affairs, 37(7), 1128-1135.