Hospital Implementation of Health Information Technology and Quality of Care: Are They Related?

Restuccia JD, Cohen AB, Horwitt JN, Drake JE, Shwartz M. Hospital Implementation of Health Information Technology and Quality of Care: Are They Related? Poster session presented at: AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting; 2010 Jun 27; Boston, MA.

Objective: To determine the association of various health information technologies (HITs) with quality improvement (QI) practices and strategies, adherence to process of care measures, risk-adjusted inpatient mortality, patient satisfaction; and assessment of quality by hospitals' quality managers and front line care providers. Data sources/study setting: Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) process of care quality measures; Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MEDPAR); Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey HCAHPS ; and surveys of quality managers and front-line clinicians (physicians and nurses) in 462 short-term, general hospitals Study design: We used Poisson regression analysis to examine the association between HIT implementation and QI practices and strategies, and general linear models to examine the relationship between HIT implementation and hospital performance. Data collection: We conducted the survey; other data are publicly-available. Principal findings: Controlling for confounders, we found that hospitals with high levels of HIT implementation engaged in significantly more QI practices and strategies, and performed significantly better on all five performance measures. Conclusions: Hospital use of HIT is associated positively with activities intended to improve patient care quality and with performance on a variety of quality measures.