Study: EMRs could lower infant mortality
Wider use of EMRs could reduce infant mortality in the U.S., according to a forthcoming study in the Journal of Political Economy.
A 10 percent increase in hospital use of basic electronic records would save 16 babies for every 100,000 live births, the study found. A complete national transition to electronic records would save an estimated 6,400 infants each year in the U.S.
Many health professionals have advocated electronic records as a way to improve care and curb costs, wrote study authors Amalia Miller of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and RAND and Catherine Tucker of the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Mass.
“For obstetricians, electronic records might make it easier to identify high risk pregnancies and coordinate care. However, until now there had been surprisingly little empirical data to support those assumptions.”
In addition to improving care, EMRs would be cost-effective compared to other healthcare interventions, the research found. Miller and Tucker estimated the cost of saving one baby through EMRs to be about $531,000. By comparison, a large expansion in Medicaid coverage for children in the 1980s cost about $840,000 per life saved, according to the researchers.
The study compared infant death rates at hospitals with and without EMRs in more than 2,500 U.S. counties over 12 years. The extensive data set allowed the researchers to control for other factors that may influence infant mortality, such as a county's socioeconomic status.
Each year 18,000 babies die in the U.S. within 28 days of birth. That places the U.S. 43rd worldwide in infant mortality rate. Slow adoption of electronic records compared to other industrial nations is playing a substantial role in the low U.S. ranking, the study suggested.
It also suggested that the $19.2 billion earmarked for EMRs in the 2009 economic stimulus package was money well spent. "These findings provide an empirical basis for government policy intervention to hasten the diffusion of healthcare [information technology]," the researchers concluded.
A 10 percent increase in hospital use of basic electronic records would save 16 babies for every 100,000 live births, the study found. A complete national transition to electronic records would save an estimated 6,400 infants each year in the U.S.
Many health professionals have advocated electronic records as a way to improve care and curb costs, wrote study authors Amalia Miller of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and RAND and Catherine Tucker of the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Mass.
“For obstetricians, electronic records might make it easier to identify high risk pregnancies and coordinate care. However, until now there had been surprisingly little empirical data to support those assumptions.”
In addition to improving care, EMRs would be cost-effective compared to other healthcare interventions, the research found. Miller and Tucker estimated the cost of saving one baby through EMRs to be about $531,000. By comparison, a large expansion in Medicaid coverage for children in the 1980s cost about $840,000 per life saved, according to the researchers.
The study compared infant death rates at hospitals with and without EMRs in more than 2,500 U.S. counties over 12 years. The extensive data set allowed the researchers to control for other factors that may influence infant mortality, such as a county's socioeconomic status.
Each year 18,000 babies die in the U.S. within 28 days of birth. That places the U.S. 43rd worldwide in infant mortality rate. Slow adoption of electronic records compared to other industrial nations is playing a substantial role in the low U.S. ranking, the study suggested.
It also suggested that the $19.2 billion earmarked for EMRs in the 2009 economic stimulus package was money well spent. "These findings provide an empirical basis for government policy intervention to hasten the diffusion of healthcare [information technology]," the researchers concluded.