News: EHR alerts result in fewer complications, lower readmissions, costs, study finds

Certain decision support alerts built into hospital EHR systems can lower costs, readmissions, and complications for patients, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Managed Care.

The researchers examined physician adherence to 18 real-time alerts embedded in a clinical support system at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center based on the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s Choosing Wisely recommendations, according to AHA News. The recommendations identify common tests and procedures that may not have clear benefit for the patient.

According to the study, in 6% of visits between October 2013 and July 2016, physicians followed all of the triggered alerts. In the remaining 94% of visits, physicians followed none of the alerts, FierceHealthcare reported.

Patients whose physicians did not heed the alerts ultimately fared worse than those whose physicians did follow the prompts, according to the study results, when it came to a variety of key outcome measures. For patients whose physicians did not follow the alerts:

• The odds of complications increased by 29%
• The risk of readmissions within 30 days of the original visit increased by 14%
• The patient’s length of stay increased by 6.2%
• The cost per patient encounter increased by 7.3%

The researchers do admit some limitations to the study, however. For example, there’s no way to measure the effect of a specific alerts on outcomes to see if one was more significant than others, according to FierceHealthcare. More study is needed, according to the researchers, but the study does show that using electronic prompts could have a real effect on cost and quality.

Editor’s note: To read the complete study results, click here. To read FierceHealthcare’s coverage of this story, click here. To read AHA News’ coverage of this story, click here. To learn about ways EHRs can help improve patient safety, click here. To see a presentation from the 2018 ACDIS Conference on EHR alerts related to acute kidney injury detection, click here.