Use of electronic health records (EHRs) may help reduce paid malpractice settlements for physicians, according to a new study.
The study, which appeared in the November 24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, showed a trend toward lower paid malpractice claims for physicians who are active users of EHR technology.
This study was based at the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
Health care policymakers have touted the benefits of EHRs, which include preserving and documenting patient health care data, reducing medication errors, improving efficiency of care, and allowing surveillance and monitoring of care for research and quality improvement.
"There is broad consensus that electronic health records are an essential foundation for the delivery of high quality care. As electronic health record adoption proceeds as a national health policy objective, some have wondered whether EHRs can help to prevent medical malpractice claims," says Assistant Professor Steven Simon, senior author on the paper.
The study examined survey responses from 1140 practicing physicians in Massachusetts during 2005 concerning their demographic characteristics and the length and extent of their EHR use. The physicians' malpractice history was accessed using publicly available data from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Board of Registration in Medicine. The study team compared the presence or absence of malpractice claims among physicians with and without EHRs, including only claims that had been settled and paid.
Overall, 6.1% of physicians with EHRs and 10.8% of physicians without them had paid malpractice settlements in the preceding ten years. After controlling for potential confounding variables, there remained a trend favoring EHR use, although the result was not statistically significant. In a secondary analysis among EHR adopters, the authors found that 5.7% of more active users of their systems had paid malpractice settlements, compared with 12.1% of less active users. Small numbers of physicians in both groups led the authors to interpret the results with caution.