"My regular physician is very much a friend to me, so I feel comfortable going in and talking to her… I think that having that kind of relationship is very important for a person with diabetes or any disease. You need to trust your doctor, and trust yourself that you can ask questions."
‒ ElaineCleveland, OH
What if health insurers, employers and health care providers banded together to help consumers buy smarter medicine? Don't rule it out. The idea -- the "patient-centered medical homes" model of care -- is beginning to take hold. The next step is to get it off the drawing board and into examining rooms, human resource departments and benefits managers' offices in a much bigger way. In Northeast Ohio, a group called Better Health Greater Cleveland has been at the task for several years now, advocating among the various stakeholders in both medical care and payment for a shift to medical homes supported by electronic health records. Read more.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine is among the first to put hard numbers on the benefits of electronic health records.Researchers looked at four national quality standards, including: 1) Eye exams, 2) pneumonia vaccinations, 3) outcome measures such as blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol control, and 4) patient-driven issues such as obesity and smoking Nearly 51% of patients in EHR practices received care that met all four quality standards, compared to just 7% of patients at paper-based practices. Nearly 44% of patients in EHR practices met at least four of five outcome standards, compared to about 16% of patients at paper-based practices.
The study is among the first to put hard numbers on the benefits of electronic health records. But as the study's lead author, Randall Cebul, MD, said in an interview this week, "51% is 49% short of ideal."
So what are the next steps? And how can health information technology get us there? Read more.
There have been a number of research studies published that question the value of Electronic Health Records (EHRs), particularly as it pertains to improving quality of care and ultimately outcomes. Chilmark has always viewed these reports with a certain amount of skepticism. Simple logic leads us to conclude that a properly installed (including attention to workflow and thorough training) of an enterprise software system such as an EHR will lead to a certain level of standardization in overall process flow, contribute to efficiencies and quality in care delivery and ultimately lead to better outcomes. But to date, there has been a dearth of evidence to support this logic, that is until this week. Read more.
Research published August 31 in the New England Journal of Medicine gives cause for optimism that federal investments in electronic health records (EHRs) could reap major benefits in better patient care and health outcomes. Read more.
Yesterday the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published a study, which looks at care delivered to diabetic patients in physician practices that use electronic health records compared to physician practices that do not. The results should not come as a surprise to those of us who are working to speed the adoption and meaningful use of health IT: Practices that use EHRs -- especially in conjunction with collaborative efforts to improve quality -- delivered measurably better care than practices which rely on paper records. Read more.
Distinguishing itself from previous efforts to prove the viability of EHRs and meaningful use, a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine shed light on just what can be accomplished by using electronic medical records rather than paper records.
The finding: A survey of 27,000 adult diabetics spanning 500 primary care physicians across 46 practices in the Cleveland area found that those practices employing EHRs earned “annual improvements in healthcare that were 10 percent greater than their paper-based counterparts,” and their patients were “significantly more likely to have healthcare and outcomes that align with accepted standards than those where doctors rely on paper records.” Read more.
August 31, 2011 — Patients with diabetes were more likely to meet care standards, such as annual eye exams, and outcome standards, such as blood glucose control, if their physician used an electronic health record (EHR) instead of a paper chart, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Such good news about EHR usage has been scarce, comments lead author Randall Cebul, MD, a professor of medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and coauthors. Read more.
Electronic health records can help doctors give their patients the best care, at least when it comes to diabetes, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.
The findings are a boost to the Obama administration’s electronic health-records program, which offers doctors and hospitals financial incentives if they set up electronic health records. The program will start penalizing providers in 2015 by cutting Medicare reimbursement by 1 percent if they don’t use an electronic medical record.
Randall Cebul, a professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University, and colleagues found that more than half of diabetes patients got the best care as measured by four standards if their providers used electronic health records. This compares to just 7 percent of patients whose providers used old-fashioned paper, they reported in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine. Read more.
Healthcare is one of the last industries in the United States to universally incorporate technological advancements. While most sectors have made significant investments in information technology to improve efficiency and consumer relationships, America’s health care system is still largely paper-driven. As a result the healthcare system is plagued by inefficiency and poor quality. Delivery is slower, more prone to errors, and harder to measure and coordinate than it should be. Investments in health information technology can help improve this situation. Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine (FREE FULL TEXT) gives cause for optimism that efforts to increase adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) will provide major benefits in better patient care and health outcomes. Perhaps we can finally move away from using a dead tree medical recod system in this country. To start with take a look at this video from a 1961 study that concluded that one day it is going to be possible to relieve the nurses and doctors of some of their paperwork, and it is going to be possible to have correlation of diseases which we have not had before, it is going to be possible to eliminate errors in medications and tests which would have been harmful to the patient: “We were not surprised by these results,” said Randall D. Cebul, M.D., a professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University and the study’s lead author who I was able to speak with earlier today. “They were influenced by several factors, including our public reporting on agreed-upon standards of care and the willingness of our clinical partners to share their EHR-based best practices while simultaneously competing on their execution.” Read more.
Medical practices using electronic health records (EHRs) achieve significantly higher composite standards for diabetes care and outcomes than those using paper records, according to a study published in the Sept. 1 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Randall D. Cebul, M.D., from the Case Western Reserve University at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, and colleagues compared the achievement of and improvement in quality standards for diabetes at practices using EHRs with those using paper records. After adjusting for covariates (insurance type, race or ethnic group, age, sex, estimated household income, and level of education), generalized estimating equations were used to calculate the percentage-point difference between EHR-based and paper-based practices with respect to achievement of composite standards for diabetes care (four standards) and outcomes (five standards) in 27,207 adults with diabetes seen at 46 practices, from July 2009 to June 2010; safety-net practices accounted for 38 percent of the patients. Separate analyses were conducted for overall sample and for safety-net practices. Read more.