In patient care facilities that meet the highest federal standards for implementing EHRs (electronic health records), greater savings were achieved by reducing the average length of patient stays, according to new research.
The study, from Case Western Reserve University, which examined four years of data, noted that at hospitals meeting the federal government’s measure of meaningful use of EHRs, patients are discharged nearly four hours earlier—approximately a 3 percent reduction of the average five-day hospital stay.
For sicker patients, the benefit was even greater: those with complex or multiple chronic conditions saw up to an additional 0.5 percent reduction in their hospital stays.
For the past several years, hospitals have been financially incentivized adopt and meaningfully use EHRs, while facing penalties for failing to do so, such as negative adjustments to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. The government dictates various measures and thresholds that providers must meet in order to get the bonuses and avoid the penalties.
What’s more, the researchers found that these shortened stays did not come with an increase in readmissions. “With prolonged patient stays costing hospitals an average of $600 a day, the use of electronic records could help contain growing costs, especially amid a trend of reduced reimbursements from insurance companies and entitlement programs,” the researchers noted.
And conversely, hospitals that did not fully engage in the meaningful use of EHRs showed no significant reductions in length of patient stays, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of Operations Management.
“Electronic health records, when meaningfully implemented help patients go home sooner, reducing their exposure to germs in the hospital and likelihood of having to come back," said Manoj Malhotra, dean of the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve and co-author of the research.
Essentially every non-federal acute care hospital in the U.S. now has implemented certified EHR technology, and the study’s researchers believe that “a more proactive approach that meaningfully uses the technology beyond mere adoption may be needed to see more progress.”
The researchers categorized hospitals into one of three categories—partial adoption of EHRs, full adoption of EHRs and “meaningful assimilation” of EHRs.
“Whereas partial or full adoption showed no benefits for reducing patient stays, meeting the government’s highest standard of meaningful use reduced length of stay without any adverse impact on readmissions,” said Malhotra. “Results from this study indicate that meaningful assimilation of technology is likely to help free-up clinicians and other valuable resources. This approach is preferable to making additional investments in facilities or hiring additional employees as more people seek hospital services.”
