Improving Medical Decision-Making Using Electronic Health Record Systems

Presenter Information

Ofir Ben-Assuli, Faculty of Business Administration, Ono Academic College,Tel Aviv University, 104 Zahal St., Kiryat Ono 55000, Israel, Israel.Follow
Itamar Shabtai, School of Economics and Management, The College of Management Academic Studies, Rishon LeZion, Israel.Follow
Moshe Leshno, Faculty of Management, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. & Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.Follow
Shawndra Hill, Operations and Information Management Department, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States.Follow

Start Date

12-16-2013

Description

This paper evaluates the contribution of an electronic health records (EHR) system to efficient decision-making by physicians, and investigates whether these systems lead to more efficient medical care in emergency departments (ED). Log-files of patient visits and admissions were retrieved from an integrative EHR system that serves seven main hospitals owned by a large health maintenance organization (HMO). This study focused on readmissions within seven days and single-day admissions, problems that concern hospitals around the world. The findings indicate that using an EHR system in the EDs correlates with a decreased number of readmissions within seven days as well as with a reduced number of single-day admissions. The results provide evidence that using EHR system may contribute to efficiency in an ED by assisting decision-making. We believe this is the first data set that investigates the impact of an EHR on hospital efficiency at the scale of HMO.

Recommended Citation

Ben-Assuli, Ofir; Shabtai, Itamar; Leshno, Moshe; and Hill, Shawndra, "Improving Medical Decision-Making Using Electronic Health Record Systems" (2013). ICIS 2013 Proceedings. 19.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2013/proceedings/ResearchInProgress/19