Electronic health records have been widely touted as a way to lower the overwhelming cost of health care. However, a new study by the Harvard School of Public Health may prove otherwise, the New York Times reports.
The study compared 3,000 hospitals at various stages in their electronic records programs, and found hospitals with advanced electronic records fared only marginally better than those with basic programs or no program. For example, the average length of a patient's stay at a hospital with advanced digital records was 5.5 days. For hospitals with basic records or no electronic records the average stay was 5.7 days.
Quality of care standards saw similarly marginal results. Among patients with heart failure, best-practice standards were met 87.8 percent of the time at hospitals with advanced records systems; hospitals with limited records systems met quality standards 86.7 percent of the time and those with no records, 85.9 percent.
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