Study ties physician-patient interaction to outcomes

The non-clinical information recorded in EHRs can assess patient-physician interaction and determine how that may impact patient care, according to a study published in Health Services Research.

Researchers from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute and the University of Minnesota sought to assess the reliability of data in EHRs for measuring the processes of care among primary care physicians, and examine the relationship, if any, between these measures and clinical outcomes. They studied data for 13,370 patients with diabetes and 49,561 patients with hypertension in northern California, examining the number of e-messages between patients and physicians, the number of e-messages among physicians about their patients, and the "time to third" next available appointment, which indicates continuity of non-urgent care.

All three were reliable factors of physician processes of care, according to the findings. The patient outreach also seemed to affect clinical outcomes--better cholesterol and blood pressure control were associated with more frequent messaging to diabetic patients; and more in-person visits were associated with better blood pressure control in the hypertensive patients.