Using EMRs is associated with a drop in ED visits and hospitalizations among diabetics, according to a study covered in iHealthBeat.
The research, which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, involved analyzing all of the 169,711 records for patients enrolled in Kaiser Permanente Northern California’s diabetes registry.
Researchers drew on data collected between 2004 and 2009. During this period, in 2005, KP began to stagger EMR implementations across the region’s 45 outpatient facilities, iHealthBeat reports.
The study found that EMR implementations were associated with the following results, according to iHealthBeat:
- 10.50% decline in hospitalizations for preventable, ambulatory-care sensitive conditions, or about 7.08 fewer hospitalizations per 1,000 patients annually;
- 6.14% decline in non-elective hospital admissions, or about 10.92 fewer admissions per 1,000 patients annually;
- 5.54% decline in ED visits, from an expected 519.12 per 1,000 patients to 490.32 annually; and
- 5.21% decline in hospital admissions, from an expected 251.6 per 1,000 patients to 238.5 annually
That being said, EMR implementation had no effect in certain areas. The number of physician office visits per year held steady at six; the frequency of times patients saw diabetic exacerbations remained level; and how often patients developed cardiovascular diseases remained the same, iHealthBeat noted.
The researchers concluded that these results represented not only an improvement in diabetes care, but also “the cumulative effect of EHRs across many different pathways and conditions.
This study is one of a growing body of evidence that effective EMR  use can reduce readmissions and improve outcomes.  For example, a recent study appearing in BMJ Quality & Safety recently concluded that EMRs can help reduce hospital readmissions of high-risk heart failure patients.
In that case, researchers used EMR-based software to sort high-risk from low-risk heart failure patients, using 29 clinical, social and behavioral factors within 24 hours of admission for heart failure. Using this tool, researchers were able to cut readmissions rates for the 1,700 adult inpatients study from 26.2 percent to 21.2 percent.
