Do Electronic Health Records Affect Quality of Care? Evidence from the HITECH Act

Yu-Kai Lin; Mingfeng Lin; Hsinchun Chen

doi:10.1287/isre.2018.0813

Do Electronic Health Records Affect Quality of Care? Evidence from the HITECH Act

Yu-Kai Lin¹; Mingfeng Lin²; Hsinchun Chen³

¹ Center for Process Innovation, Department of Computer Information Systems, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30303; · ² Information Technology Management, Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30308 · ³ Department of Management Information Systems, Eller College of Management, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721

Information Systems Research 2019

The 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act is landmark legislation that places electronic health record (EHR) technologies at the center of health system reform in the United States. This study leverages the meaningful use (MU) provisions of the HITECH Act to quantify different degrees of EHR use in a large and heterogeneous set of hospitals and investigates the impact of EHR use on quality of care. The results provide evidence of EHRs’ positive quality effects and reconcile earlier mixed findings in the EHR evaluation literature by showing that their benefits vary according to different levels of use and hospital characteristics. The effect sizes were larger in disadvantaged (i.e., small and rural) hospitals, suggesting the potential of EHRs in mitigating the disparities in the quality of healthcare.

DOI: 10.1287/isre.2018.0813
Volume: 30 (1)
Pages: 306-318
Language: en
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Sources: crossref