THE IMPACT OF COMPUTERIZED PATIENT RECORDS ON THE QUALITY OF INPATIENT CARE: THE PERSPECTIVES OF PHYSICIANS AND NURSES.
Contributors: George Washington University.
Published: 1995
Number of pages: 207
Subjects: Computer Science.; Health Sciences, Health Care Management.; Information Science.
Description: By the 1980s, information systems based on computerized patient records (CPR) began to gain increasing importance in hospitals in the United States. By enhancing the quality of medical records maintenance, CPR systems, by extension, offer the promise of higher levels of patient care. Yet, despite offering manifold advantages, the use of CPR systems is currently limited to only five percent of American hospitals.

This study assesses the impact of computerized patient records on the quality of care patients receive in hospitals. The degree to which computer technology enhances the flow of information among healthcare providers as well as the extent to which this particular application of computer technology improves the level of patient care were examined. Specifically, the efficiency and effectiveness of patient record systems utilizing CPR technology were compared with those employing paper patient records (PPR). This study compared the results of a survey circulated among physicians and nurses in 120 hospitals across the United States.

Respondents to the survey were asked to assess the value of the patient record systems currently employed by their institution with regard to record content, format, ease of access (including availability and retrieval time), and integration of information within records. In addition, the survey asked healthcare practitioners to rate how well the patient record management systems integrate data with other record management systems. The following main findings were obtained: (1) individual, teaching, community, military and veterans affairs hospitals were able to enhance the quality of care by utilizing CPR; and (2) as a group, hospitals utilizing CPR, independent of the type of hospital, were better able to enhance the quality of care to patients than those hospitals relying on PPR.

The reliability of the instrument was assessed by computing Cronbach's alpha, measuring the internal consistency based on the average correlation of each item with the total of each sub-scale. Reliability coefficients for the items measured in Parts I, II and III were found to be 0.90, 0.87 and 0.94 respectively, with all of them being highly significant, securing the internal consistency of these items included in each part.

Based on these findings, the study strongly recommends that teaching, military community and veterans affairs hospitals lacking CPR adopt this technology in order to improve their record keeping systems and, in turn, improve the quality of care provided to their patients.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-10, Section: B, page: 5594.

Thesis (D.SC.)--THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, 1995.

School code: 0075.