Using High Tech To Lower Health Costs

Health policy experts hope that technology will become a tool for educating doctors about the cost of care.

More widespread use of electronic medical records, they say, will help keep costs in check by providing doctors with precise information on the price of tests and drugs even as they are deciding what to order. According to a 1990 study by Indiana University researchers, showing the charges for tests on computers used by medical residents working in an outpatient clinic led to a 14 percent drop in the number of tests ordered, with no adverse effects on patients. Subsequent studies found similar results when the prices of tests and imaging studies were displayed on computers in pediatric emergency rooms and in a pediatric intensive care unit.