Cardiovascular, pneumonia, and surgery patients exposed to fully electronic health records were less likely to experience in-hospital adverse events, according to a new study from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Using 2012 and 2013 Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System data, researchers examined the association of hospitals’ electronic health records adoption and occurrence rates of in-hospital adverse events. The primary outcomes evaluated were the occurrence rates of 21 in-hospital adverse events, classified by four clinical domains: hospital-acquired infections, adverse drug events, general events (such as falls and pressure ulcers), and post-procedural events. Among the more than 45,000 patients who were at risk for nearly 350,000 adverse events in the study sample, 13% were exposed to fully electronic health records.
Among all study patients, the occurrence rate of adverse events was 2.3% (7,820 adverse events). Patients exposed to fully electronic health records, however, had 17–30% lower odds of any adverse event. An abstract of the study is available online at http://1.usa.gov/1KOL4j4.
