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Review
. 2022 Sep 27;10(9):e37283.
doi: 10.2196/37283.

The Value of Electronic Health Records Since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act: Systematic Review

Shikha Modi #  1 , Sue S Feldman  2
Affiliations
Review

The Value of Electronic Health Records Since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act: Systematic Review

Shikha Modi et al. JMIR Med Inform. .

Abstract

Background: Electronic health records (EHRs) are the electronic records of patient health information created during ≥1 encounter in any health care setting. The Health Information Technology Act of 2009 has been a major driver of the adoption and implementation of EHRs in the United States. Given that the adoption of EHRs is a complex and expensive investment, a return on this investment is expected.

Objective: This literature review aims to focus on how the value of EHRs as an intervention is defined in relation to the elaboration of value into 2 different value outcome categories, financial and clinical outcomes, and to understand how EHRs contribute to these 2 value outcome categories.

Methods: This literature review was conducted using PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses). The initial search of key terms, EHRs, values, financial outcomes, and clinical outcomes in 3 different databases yielded 971 articles, of which, after removing 410 (42.2%) duplicates, 561 (57.8%) were incorporated in the title and abstract screening. During the title and abstract screening phase, articles were excluded from further review phases if they met any of the following criteria: not relevant to the outcomes of interest, not relevant to EHRs, nonempirical, and non-peer reviewed. After the application of the exclusion criteria, 80 studies remained for a full-text review. After evaluating the full text of the residual 80 studies, 26 (33%) studies were excluded as they did not address the impact of EHR adoption on the outcomes of interest. Furthermore, 4 additional studies were discovered through manual reference searches and were added to the total, resulting in 58 studies for analysis. A qualitative analysis tool, ATLAS.ti. (version 8.2), was used to categorize and code the final 58 studies.

Results: The findings from the literature review indicated a combination of positive and negative impacts of EHRs on financial and clinical outcomes. Of the 58 studies surveyed for this review of the literature, 5 (9%) reported on the intersection of financial and clinical outcomes. To investigate this intersection further, the category "Value-Intersection of Financial and Clinical Outcomes" was generated. Approximately 80% (4/5) of these studies specified a positive association between EHR adoption and financial and clinical outcomes.

Conclusions: This review of the literature reports on the individual and collective value of EHRs from a financial and clinical outcomes perspective. The collective perspective examined the intersection of financial and clinical outcomes, suggesting a reversal of the current understanding of how IT investments could generate improvements in productivity, and prompted a new question to be asked about whether an increase in productivity could potentially lead to more IT investments.

Keywords: EHRs; clinical informatics; clinical outcomes; electronic health records; financial outcomes; health informatics; value.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) flow diagram [22]. EHR: electronic health record.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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