| Physicians Using HIT Improve Clinical Quality, Study Finds
California physician groups using health information
technology (HIT) show better quality improvement than those groups that
don’t.
That was one conclusion of a study conducted by the
Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA), comparing quality measurements
across eight California regions in four performance measurement
domains: clinical quality, patient experience, information
technology-enabled systems, and coordinated diabetes care.
All eight regions showed quality improvements this year
compared to 2008, the IHA said. The degree of improvement varied by
region but the most marked improvement occurred among physician groups
with HIT.
One of the eight regions, the Inland Empire, had the
lowest regional clinical composite average, but those physician groups
operating in Inland out performed their nearby rivals. They attributed
improvement to implementation of HIT and adoption and use of medical
registries (electronic databases for tracking compliance to standards
of medical care) that allow for better data collection for patient
monitoring and follow-up.
Aware of the quality discrepancies and why, The Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation recently funded a grant to explore the cause of
the variation discovered.
Address: Integrated Healthcare Association, 300 Lakeside Drive, Suite 1975, Oakland, CA 94612; (510) 208-1740, www.IHA.org.
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