Study: EMRs Surpass Paper Records in Identifying Follow-up Needs

In a study commissioned by Canada Health Infoway, an independent, non-profit organization, primary care practices with electronic medical records identified patients who needed preventative or follow-up care approximately 30 times more quickly than clinics with paper-based records. As part of the study, various clinics across Canada reviewed patient records to identify those who would benefit from six different types of evidence-based interventions: immunization, follow-up care after a heart attack, cancer screening, diabetes management and medication recalls. Practices using EMRs reviewed records of all their active patients in an average of 1.4 hours. Practices with paper-based patient records reviewed 10 percent of all active charts in 3.9 hours. According to the report, the practices with paper-based patient records would have needed an estimated 40 hours to conduct a full practice review.

Eleven community-based primary care clinics, including 21 individual physician practices, took part in the study. Seventeen of the practices used EMRs while four practices used paper-based records. The clinics are located in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. All the participating practices and clinics are approximately the same size.

Researchers from St. Mary's Research Centre in Quebec, Canada, MedbASE Research and McGill University in Quebec conducted the study.

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