Can Health Care Information Technology Save Babies?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Miller, Amalia R.; Tucker, Catherine E.
• 署名单位: University of Virginia; RAND Corporation; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/660083
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 289-324
• 关键词: quality; record; diagnosis; adoption; COSTS; 1st

摘要

Electronic medical records (EMRs) facilitate fast and accurate access to patient records, which could improve diagnosis and patient monitoring. Using a 12-year county-level panel, we find that a 10 percent increase in births that occur in hospitals with EMRs reduces neonatal mortality by 16 deaths per 100,000 live births. This is driven by a reduction of deaths from conditions requiring careful monitoring. We also find a strong decrease in mortality when we instrument for EMR adoption using variation in state medical privacy laws. Rough cost-effectiveness calculations suggest that EMRs are associated with a cost of $531,000 per baby's life saved.