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EHRs may help doctors eliminate unnecessary spending
01.27.2012
The U.S. spent $2.3 trillion on healthcare in 2008, and experts say that as much as 30 percent of that money was spent on unnecessary procedures, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Eliminating inefficiencies and duplicative procedures may be among the most effective ways to control runaway healthcare costs.A new study suggests that doctors may be able to utilize electronic health records to limit the number of unnecessary procedures they offer to patients. The researchers said this technology could play a central role in efforts to tame healthcare spending and deliver more effecient care.
For the study, researchers from Northwestern University analyzed data from the EHRs of patients who received pap smear screenings for cervical cancer. The authors of the study said that healthy women with few risk factors for the condition should be tested every three years, but that many individuals are screened more frequently.
The point of the study was to determine if there was sufficient information in the EHRs for doctors to appropriately recommend cervical cancer screening based on clinical guidelines.
The results showed that the majority of existing EHRs had enough previously collected data on each patient for doctors to determine if cervical cancer screening was appropriate. Despite this, doctors ordere pap smears for 66 percent of women who had few risk factors for cervical cancer or who had been tested within the previous three years.
Not only did this unnecessary testing represent higher direct costs, the researchers found many low-risk women received false-positives, which required further testing and greater costs.
Given that EHRs contain so much information, the researchers concluded that the technology could be a powerful tool for eliminating unnecessary medical expenses when applied across the entire healthcare system.
Categories: Patient Safety
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