A recent study released in the Annals of Internal Medicine says Electronic Health Records (EHRs) improve both care and overall outcomes for patients with diabetes.
The study reported that EHRs helped improve drug treatment intensifications, monitoring and physiologic control for those patients with diabetes. They saw the greatest improvements in patients with poor control.
The researchers came to their results by taking advantage of EHR systems in 17 medical centers in Northern California between 2005 and 2008. They were able to examine differences in the effect of the EHR across different levels of disease control - determining the effect of EHR use on those measures for nearly 170,000 patients.
Their findings suggest actual improvements in the clinical care of patients with diabetes and also a future for even more improvements. Overall the study offers proof that EHRs are a powerful tool in helping clinics deliver well-targeted, high-quality care of patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, in the long run improving patients’ outcomes.
