Researchers suggest EHR systems linked to higher costs

Researchers from the business school at Arizona State University, Tempe, say their work suggests electronic health-records systems in hospitals increase hospital costs, nurse staffing levels and the incidence of complications, but lower mortality rates for some conditions, according to a published report. The three-man team from the W. P. Carey School of Business at ASU found IT implementations were associated with 6% to 10% higher cost per discharge in medical-surgical acute care units. They also found relatively lower intensive IT implementations, at Stage 2 on the HIMSS Analytics adoption model, were coincident with 15% to 26% higher registered nurse hours by per day and reduced licensed vocational nurse cost by 2% to 4%. Meanwhile, higher, Stage 3 implementations were associated with 3% to 4% lower rates for in-hospital mortality for certain conditions, the report said.