Journal article
The long-term financial impact of electronic health record implementation
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, v 22(2), pp 443-452
01 Mar 2015
PMID: 25164255
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Objective To examine the financial impact of electronic health record (EHR) implementation on ambulatory practices.
Methods We tracked the practice productivity (ie, number of patient visits) and reimbursement of 30 ambulatory practices for 2 years after EHR implementation and compared each practice to their pre-EHR implementation baseline.
Results Reimbursements significantly increased after EHR implementation even though practice productivity (ie, the number of patient visits) decreased over the 2-year observation period. We saw no evidence of upcoding or increased reimbursement rates to explain the increased revenues. Instead, they were associated with an increase in ancillary office procedures (eg, drawing blood, immunizations, wound care, ultrasounds).
Discussion The bottom line result-that EHR implementation is associated with increased revenues-is reassuring and offers a basis for further EHR investment. While the productivity losses are consistent with field reports, they also reflect a type of efficiency-the practices are receiving more reimbursement for fewer seeing patients. For the practices still seeing fewer patients after 2 years, the solution likely involves advancing their EHR functionality to include analytics. Although they may still see fewer patients, with EHR analytics, they can focus on seeing the right patients.
Conclusions Practice reimbursements increased after EHR implementation, but there was a long-term decrease in the number of patient visits seen in this ambulatory practice context.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- The long-term financial impact of electronic health record implementation
- Creators
- Michael J. Howley - Drexel UniversityEdgar Y. Chou - Drexel UniversityNancy Hansen - Drexel UniversityPrudence W. Dalrymple - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, v 22(2), pp 443-452
- Publisher
- Oxford Univ Press
- Number of pages
- 10
- Grant note
- Drexel University Provost's Office through the Health Informatics Jumpstart program
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Information Science; College of Medicine; Marketing
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000352771500022
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84934297895
- Other Identifier
- 991019168051104721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Computer Science, Information Systems
- Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications
- Health Care Sciences & Services
- Information Science & Library Science
- Medical Informatics