A research letter published Monday by Harvard scientists in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that doctors who adopt the use of electronic health records have a lower rate of malpractice claims.
The researchers examined responses from 275 physicians in Massachusetts who responded to surveys in 2005 and 2007, and examined the physicians’ use of electronic health records (EHRs) and the number of suits filed against them. According to the analysis, malpractice claims for physicians using electronic health records were a sixth of those for doctors not using EHRs.
“This study adds to the literature suggesting that EHRs have the potential to improve patient safety and supports the conclusions of our prior work, which showed a lower risk of paid claims among physicians using EHRs,” report the researchers. They also note that lower malpractice claims can help to curb health care costs.
The researchers acknowledged the results could relate to unmeasured factors such as doctors who “were early adopters of EHRs may exhibit practice patterns that make them less likely to have malpractice claims.”
The 2009 federal stimulus package provided financial incentives for doctors who start using EHRs before 2015. Many providers have been struggling to make the change, however, and there have been concerns over privacy.
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Harvard? What do they know? If you really want the truth about EHR’s, you simply need to contact the Romney Campaign.
Wow, talk about an off target comment for this article.
EHRs are a great asset to any provider organization and the patients that they serve. It is too bad that implementation of the EHRs are so expensive even with bonus payments and subsidies.
Certainly this oncologist has found EHR use to positively enable a reduction in malpractice premiums in this very large oncology practice. http://www.oncologytube.com/index.php?page=videos§ion=view&vid_id=102854
As an Emergency Physician who has reviewed charts of malpractice claims for 30+ years, I find the EMR/Template record to be the plaintiff’s best friend. (Admittedly, this is less likely to be true of specialties with ongoing patient relationships such as family practice and oncology.) In the ED, the EMR becomes more of a billing document than a communication tool. There is no “color” to the encounter without a handwritten or dictated note. Caring for the PATIENT (rather than the documentation) is rarely in evidence, and the charts reek of “CYA.” Available past records, or even current visit nursing notes, can be shown to have never been checked. There are boxes to check or prompts to address that are overlooked, and other boxes that ARE checked that are totally inappropriate (e.g., “Back – full ROM” on a patient with an eye complaint) indicating a less than diligent, efficient – or honest? – physician. The EMR may help reduce one’s liability risk, but only if properly used.