Study: ‘Paperless’ hospitals better for patients

Results from a large-scale Johns Hopkins study of more than 40 hospitals and 160,000 patients show that when health information technologies replace paper forms and handwritten notes, hospitals and patients benefit.

“Patients appear safer and hospital bottom lines may improve when health care information is gathered and stored on computers rather than on paper,” noted senior author Dr. Neil R. Powe (right) of the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research.

In the study, published Jan. 26 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Powe and Dr. Ruben Amarasingham and colleagues rated clinical information technologies at 41 hospitals in Texas and compared those results with discharge information for 167,233 patients.

“Previous studies only told us how well one particular electronic system used by one particular hospital worked,” Amarasingham noted in a statement. “This study gives us a better sense about the general success of paperless systems in a diverse set of community, academic and safety-net hospitals.”

Results showed that with computerized automation of notes and records, hospitals whose technologies ranked in the top third were associated with a 15% decrease in the odds that a patient would die while hospitalized.

Powe said the results, if applied to all U.S. hospitals, would indicate that 100,000 lives could be saved each year with the use of an electronic record and notes system.

The highest scores for electronic "order entry" systems were linked to a 9% and 55% decrease in the odds of death from heart attacks and coronary artery bypass procedures respectively.

The paperless systems ranked by the Hopkins team included electronic notes, previous treatment records, test results, orders for drugs, procedures and blood tests, and decision-support systems that offer up-to-date information on treatment options and drug interactions.