Paper Type

Complete

Abstract

While Health IT has become ubiquitous in US hospitals, the impact of change of its Meaningful Use (MU) certification status on hospitals' cost of care remains underexplored. In this paper, we verify the effect of the change of MU certification status from Stage 1 to Stage 2 on cost of care. We created a panel dataset using two publicly available datasets related to hospitals Meaningful Use attestation status and Medicare payment to hospitals. We use the Difference-in-Differences method and find significant negative impact of change in the MU Stage from 1 to 2 on the average cost of clinical procedure, in short and long term. Therefore, we find empirical evidence that suggests an increase in intensity of Meaningful Use of electronic health record results in lowering of average cost of procedures from the payer’s (Medicare) point of view. Our study has significant implications for Health IT policy makers.

Paper Number

1762

Author Connect URL

https://authorconnect.aisnet.org/conferences/AMCIS2024/papers/1762

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Aug 16th, 12:00 AM

Effect of Change in Meaningful Use Intensity of EHR System on Cost of Care

While Health IT has become ubiquitous in US hospitals, the impact of change of its Meaningful Use (MU) certification status on hospitals' cost of care remains underexplored. In this paper, we verify the effect of the change of MU certification status from Stage 1 to Stage 2 on cost of care. We created a panel dataset using two publicly available datasets related to hospitals Meaningful Use attestation status and Medicare payment to hospitals. We use the Difference-in-Differences method and find significant negative impact of change in the MU Stage from 1 to 2 on the average cost of clinical procedure, in short and long term. Therefore, we find empirical evidence that suggests an increase in intensity of Meaningful Use of electronic health record results in lowering of average cost of procedures from the payer’s (Medicare) point of view. Our study has significant implications for Health IT policy makers.

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