How Does Your EHR Affect Quality and Outcomes?

These new findings, based on a Johns Hopkins-led study (Murphy et al. 2020), highlight the need to rethink criteria by which EHR implementation is measured and incentivised. In addition, healthcare leaders should pay more attention to how the different features of EHR solutions may lead to differential outcomes.

Although increased use of computerised provider order entry (CPOE) for medications, for instance, was associated with improved patient satisfaction in some areas, researchers noticed that increased CPOE use for laboratory tests correlated with lower satisfaction in all areas.

This particular finding suggests that “studies of CPOE must look at these distinct order types rather than CPOE as a single entity,” the researchers point out. Note that CPOE for medication and laboratory orders is commonly unified by the EHR, however, “the workflows for each activity diverge almost immediately,” the researchers said, adding that more research is necessary to explain these contrasting associations.