EMR Benefits and Return on Investment Categories

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The following EMR-related benefits have been identified within various health care organizations. Before one assumes that just because some other organization was able to realize a specific benefit that they will be able to achieve the same thing, one must ensure that they have the same EMR features and functions available AND the clinicians are, or will, use them at their organization.


Common EMR Benefit Categories

Financial

  • Charges for laboratory tests were 8.8% lower in the intervention group (P < 0.05) from: Tierney WM, McDonald CJ, Hui SL, Martin DK. Computer predictions of abnormal test results. Effects on outpatient testing. JAMA. 1988;259:1194-8.
  • With the use of EMR, record handling will be conducted in the office, records will not have to be sent to an outsource provider or to a transcriber for handling. This will ultimately help saving transcription cost. Reference: http://www.allscripts.com/casestudies/nffm.pdf
  • EMR can facilitate the efficient creation and transmission of reports that support patient safety, quality improvement, public health, research, and other health care operations. All of those will reduce the cost of healthcare.
  • EMRs can remove the middle man in different instances, cutting cost by eliminating the need for the middle man. For instance, automated dictation replaces the person that would type the dictation, thus reducing total cost.
  • Financial benefits under pay for performance (P4P) accrue to the highest quality providers, both hospitals and physicians. EMR's which allow for real-time quality data can enable organizations to better meet targets to earn quality bonuses on Medicare and private insurance reimbursement.
  • Many ambulatory EMR systems are integrated with e-Prescribing. For physicians who use this technology in 2009 and 2010 for at least 50% of their eligible patients, an addtional 2% will be added to their Medicare reimbursement. The amount drops to 1% for 2011 and 2012, and thereafter, non-use becomes a penalty. [1]
  • A major component of all hospital operating budgets is the purchase of drugs with IV and IM doses generally being considerably more costly per dose versus oral. EMR's can support early transition from parenteral medications to oral, thus decreasing costs per admission and length of stay (LOS).[Reference: Fischer MA et al.Conversion from intravenous to oral medications. Arch Int Med 163(2003):2585-2589.]
  • In a paper record, clinicians are not always thinking about optimizing charges. Omission of essential information makes it difficult to justify the charges. An EMR can help reduce billing errors and help prompt users to document fields that will be essential for billing. Wang et al, A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Electronic Medical Record.
  • Effective EMRs and clinical decision support systems help notify clinical nurse specialists of patients with pressure ulcers or risk for developing pressure ulcers and avoid unnecessary costs for hospitals. Timm JA, Chick KL, Peterson JA, Epps SI, Bleimeyer RR, Harris M. Using expert rules to automate pressure ulcer alerts for the clinical nurse specialist. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2008 Nov 6:1154.
  • Physicians alerted on computer-screen displays to the charges for each test, and the total charges for tests ordered that day, ordered fewer tests. "In the intervention group, physicians ordered 14% fewer tests (P < 0.005) and charges for tests were 13% lower (both P < 0.05)." Tierney WM, Miller ME, McDonald CJ. The effect on test ordering of informing physicians of the charges for outpatient diagnostic tests. N Engl JMed. 1990;322:1499-504. [PMID: 2186274]
  • Showing doctors the results of previous tests on computer-screen displays, including the test dates, reduced the rate of ordering new tests. "The number of tests decreased significantly in both groups, but more in the intervention group (16.8% in the intervention group and 10.9% in the control group)." Tierney WM, McDonald CJ, Martin DK, Rogers MP. Computerized display of past test results. Effect on outpatient testing. Ann Intern Med. 1987;107:569-74. [PMID: 3631792]
  • Using a CPOE system reduced total hospital charges by $887, or 12.7%, compared to the control group. The average stay was 0.89 day shorter (P = 0.11). Tierney WM, Miller ME, Overhage JM, McDonald CJ. Physician inpatient order writing on microcomputer workstations. Effects on resource utilization. JAMA. 1993;269:379-83. [PMID: 8418345]
  • Eliminating paper chart supplies and copying expense as well as costs associated with storing paper charts.
  • On average charts are pulled approximately 600 times a year. With an average cost of $5 to pull and re-file a chart, this is a savings of approximately $3000. Ref: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Electronic Medical Records/Wang et al
  • EMR can reduce staff time used in preparing paper records. Brigham and Women's Hospital reported a cumulative saving of $0.6 million by automatically generating medication lists at patients' discharges using their EMR. Ref: Kaushal R et al. Return on investment for a computerized physician order entry system. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2006;13(3):261-66.

Clinical

  • EMR systems have been proven to decrease the amount of time nursing staff spends on documentation. Reference: A Review of Methods to Estimate the Benefits of Electronic Medical Records in Hospitals and the Need for a National Benefits Database. Journal of Healthcare Information Management- Vol. 21, No. 1 p 67.
  • Alert and reminder programs in EMR's increase physician attentiveness to certain areas such as preventive medicine or more specifically drug level monitoring. Reference: Computer Physician Order EntryL Benefits, Costs, and Issues. Gilad Kuperman, M.D., P.h.D., Richard Gibson, M.D., P.h.D. Ann Intern Med. 2003; 139:31-39.
  • Interfacing EMR with hospital paging system allows critical laboratory results to be communicated to responsible physician timely. The system reduces the time between a critical result arises and the corresponding physician's responses. Ref: Kuperman GJ, Teich JM, Tanasijevic MJ, Luf NM, Rittenberg E, Jha A, Fiskio J, Winkelman J, Bates DW. Improving response to critical laboratory results with automation. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 1999;6(6):512-22.
  • Information on patient allergies and other medications, in combination with alerts and reminders, can decrease he number of medication-realted adverse events and improve presribing practices of physicians and nurse practioners. Key Capabilities of an Electronic Health Record System
  • Increased ordering rates for pneumococcal and influenza vaccine, prophylactic heparin, and aspirin at discharge. from: Dexter PR, Perkins S, Overhage JM, Maharry K, Kohler RB, McDonald CJ. A computerized reminder system to increase the use of preventive care for hospitalized patients. N Engl J Med. 2001;345:965-70.
  • With the quality EMR, quick access to patients records can be lifesaving during the emergency situation by helping emergency decision-making process.
  • EMR can help making medical history more efficient and accurate by providing templates that can decrease the time spent in documentation.
  • EMR can reduce the number of errors associated with transcription.
  • EMR will provide the integrated view of patient to clinician so that they can spent less time for getting patients’ history, lab and radiology results and medication information so that clinicians can make diagnosis more accurately and faster.
  • EMRs have the capability to dislay previous laboratory test results can significantly reduce the number of redundant tests ordered, not only saving money, but also the preventing the patient from undergoing unnecessary tests.Key Capabilities of an Electronic Health Record System
  • By integrating guidelines and clinical information tools, EMRs improve the quality of outpatient care and safety of drug administration. Reference: Crane RM, Raymond B. Fulfilling the Potential of Clinical Information System. The Permanente Journal. 7.1 (2003). PP 63-64.
  • An effective EMR system helps clinical nurse specialists notify patients with pressure ulcers or risk for developing pressure ulcers in time and therefore improve quality of care. Timm JA, Chick KL, Peterson JA, Epps SI, Bleimeyer RR, Harris M. Using expert rules to automate pressure ulcer alerts for the clinical nurse specialist. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2008 Nov 6:1154.
  • Improved patient education through use of patient portal
  • Streamline communication both between patient and provider, and between clinicians
  • Process Improvement. EMR implementations allows to review the clinical processes management, customizing it for a better quality and delivered health care. University of Illinois Chicago Medical Center has published 75% reduction in chart pull requests, expected to increase, 12 paper forms eliminated and 100% availability patient records (previously 40%). The Gemini Project http://www.himss.org/content/files/davies_2001_uiccmc.pdf
  • Overhage and colleagues demonstrated that compliance with the monitoring of drug levels doubled when automated ordering reminders were implemented. Ref: Overhage JM, Tierney WM, Zhou XH, McDonald CJ. A randomized trial of “corollary orders” to prevent errors of omission. J Am Med Inform Assoc.1997;4:364-75. [PMID: 9292842]
  • Teich et al found that CPOE with reminder feature increases the providers' compliance rate in using formulary and prophylactic heparin according to clinical guidelines and improves the appropriateness of dosage. Ref: Teich JM, Merchia PR, Schmiz JL, Kuperman GJ, Spurr CD, Bates DW. Effects of computerized physician order entry on prescribing practices. Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:2741-7.

Operational

  • Overall, 6.2% increase in time spent ordering (not statistically significant); experienced users were time neutral with paperbased ordering. from: Overhage JM, Perkins S, Tierney WM, McDonald CJ. Controlled trial of direct physician order entry: effects on physicians’ time utilization in ambulatory primary care internal medicine practices. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2001;8:361-71.
  • EMRs allow a physician to access multiple records at the touch of a button. Whether he or she is at a computer or in an exam room with a patient, the workflow is enhanced as less effort is required to retrieve information.
  • Protects patient data by preventing unauthorized individuals from accessing the clinical record.
  • Integrated communication and reporting support. EMR can facilitate the efficient creation and transmission of reports that relate to health care operations such as billing and charge information. Coiera, E (2003) Guide to Health Informatics (2nd Edition), Arnold Publishers Shortliffe, EH (ed) (2006) Biomedical Informatics (3rd Edition), Springer. pg. 119.
  • EMRs improve interdisciplinary collaborations and efficent communications between physicians and nurses via nursing documentation with greater clarity and additional information. Green SD, Thomas JD. Interdisciplinary collaboration and the electronic medical record. PMID: 18649812 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
  • documentation completed at conclusion of encounter.
  • Preventing the missing patient paper medical recodrs. Every time a paper chart gets stored, there is the chance it will be misplaced or maybe filed in a wrong place. This is very frequently is many hospitals, specially in those of the limited resources countries without EMR systems in where all paper medical records are located in a central repository room. EMR allows to prevents it by an unique electronic record and patient chart available in all time and stored into one central data repository server.
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