The impact of electronic health records on healthcare quality: a systematic review and meta-analysis

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Objective

The authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of published documents to evaluate the influence of electronic health records (EHRs) on a health quality.

Research Questions

Is there a positive or negative impact on healthcare quality when introducing an EHR[[2]] .

Methods

The articles where selected using the PRISMA guidelines for meta-analysis and systematic reviews with a restriction of the published years being between 1994 and 2013. Using a predetermined algorithm the following libraries where utilized: Web of knowledge, PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane. Articles where limited to the English language and were systematically reviewed and selected for consideration.

Results

The researches initial results yielded 23,398 (PubMed 5783, Web of knowledge 9987, Scopus 7624, Cochrane Library 4) total articles. However this was reduced to 47 articles for the study. The proportion of each group analyzed are as follows: 6 studied EHR and guideline adherence, 7 focused on adverse drug effects, 8 focused on mortality, 9 focused on relationship of EHR and documentation time, lastly, 24 focused on medication errors. Data supports that a negative (decreasing) direct correlation between an EHR and time documenting does exist. As well as a negative (decrease) in adverse drug effects and medication errors. As well as a positive (increase) in guideline adherence.

Conclusions

When an EHR is appropriately executed it can improve the quality of healthcare. Thus EHRs should be championed and encouraged. The evidence supports the improvement in the areas of documentation time and the reduction of medical errors.

Comments

I find this topic not only interesting but very important. As this supports a fundamental reason behind EHRs/EMRs systems. That reason is to assist in the improvement of patient care and through that improvement reduce the mortality and morbidity rates. I found the authors’ method and approach very insightful and diligent. I especially found the criteria to be an interesting choice. I do however, feel the authors should have provided a before and after an EHR was installed approached. I believe this would be more beneficial in the fact that it would provide the reader a more comprehensive way to grasp the objective and conclusion. [1]

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References

  1. Campanella, P., Lovato, E., Marone, C., Fallacara, L., Mancuso, A., Ricciardi, W., & Specchia, M. (2015, July,1). The impact of electronic health records on healthcare quality: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The European Journal of Public Health, 1-5. [1]