EHRs and the Future of Healthcare Quality Standards
Is a system-wide electronic health record system a new demand to attain high-quality healthcare delivery? It might very well be.
A new study conducted by Thomson Reuters and published in Modern Healthcare announced its latest Top 10 ranking healthcare systems. Interestingly, each of these systems shared three factors in attaining higher-quality outcomes:
1) A corporate-level coordinating committee;
2) Involvement in planning from front-line caregivers; and
3) A system-wide electronic health record system (EHR).
Thomson-Reuters evaluated 252 health systems, representing 1,720 hospitals. Each health system was judged based on five clinical performance measures: mortality, complications, patient safety, length-of-stay and use of evidence-based medicine. The study utilized information from two public databases: the 2007 Medicare Provider Analysis and Review, and the 2007 Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hospital Compare.
The top ten health systems in the United States:
- Advocate Health Care, Oak Brook, Illinois
- Catholic Healthcare Partners, Cincinnati, Ohio
- Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio
- HealthEast Care System, St. Paul, Minnesota
- Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, Michigan
- Kettering Health Network, Dayton, Ohio
- OhioHealth, Columbus; Ohio
- Prime Healthcare Services, Victorville, California
- Trinity Health, Novi, Michigan
- University Hospitals, Cleveland, Ohio
In doing some very basic research, it is interesting to note that the top three healthcare systems all have different EHR software (Allscripts, Epic, and Chartmaxx). Therefore, one can conclude from this study that successful operations of a healthcare system’s EHR software it isn’t necessarily determined by a specific EHR software; it’s influenced more by choosing the software that meets the specific needs of the healthcare system, preparing for implementation, and optimizing the EHR software capabilities once it’s in place. The strategic process of choosing and implementing a successful EHR system may be necessary to attain high quality standards in the future of healthcare delivery.
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My question is will all these different EHR formats “talk” to one another? Can patient information be easily transferred between institutions? Thank you
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It is right at the point of not involving physicians enough, in the workflows, that I think needs to get a whole lot better. I’m not faulting the IT staff; they did not go to med school. Example: I would rather have a Preference List for labs that has a disease based component to them, so I could order all my normal diabetic labs in one place! Does anyone else have thoughts on this?