EHRs Improve Care for Diabetics, Study Shows

Diabetics treated at medical practices that use electronic health records received better quality care than those treated at practices that rely on paper records, researchers in Cleveland reported this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Fifty-one percent of patients treated at the EHR sites received care that meets all four standards of care for treatment of diabetes, compared with just 6.6 percent of patients at paper-record sites, the researchers said.

Meanwhile, 44 percent of patients at EHR sites had outcomes that met at least four of five separate standards. At paper-based sites, just 16% of patients had similar outcomes. EHR sites did better on all but one outcome standard, the authors said.

The findings were similar when adjusted for insurance type, age, sex, race or ethnic group and other demographic factors.

The study, which covered the 12-month period that ended June 30, 2010, analyzed treatment provided at Cleveland-area practices with high numbers of priority primary-care physicians.

The authors noted that their results "contrast sharply" with those of other studies, which did not associate EHR use with quality of care. They noted that other studies used older data, sampled random visits that did not allow analysis of treatment for chronic disease, and accounted differently for patients at paper-based practices with fewer of the resources needed to care for large numbers of "vulnerable" patients.

EHRs aren't solely responsible for improved treatment and outcomes, the researchers said, but they play a part.

The authors of the report are Dr. Randall D. Cebul, Thomas E. Love, Dr. Anil K. Jain and Dr. Christopher J. Hebert.