AHRQ: Health IT boosts quality of care
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) “Improving Quality Through Clinician Use of Health IT” initiative demonstrated health IT’s positive impact on the delivery of evidence-based care, according to a report that highlighted key findings from 24 projects awarded in 2007.
The projects developed and tested various approaches for enhancing clinical decision support, providing clinical information at the point of care and improving care coordination. They also examined the integration of health IT systems into clinical workflows.
Of the projects, several showed a positive impact on process outcomes related to the delivery of evidence-based preventive and chronic care or the use of health IT by clinicians. Others showed a positive impact on intermediate outcomes such as chronic disease control, clinician perceptions of health IT usefulness and clinician satisfaction and some demonstrated improvements in health outcomes such as health status and adverse drug events.
“The continuing rapid pace of technological change and the continuing interest in use of health IT for improving health and healthcare delivery make the results of this body of research timely and relevant,” according to the report.
View the report here.