Study shows EHRs do lower costs.

• Position: EHR - Brief article

A recent article on Medical Xpress.com indicates that doctors who use commercially available electronic health record (EHR) systems are seeing slower growth in healthcare costs, saving $5.14 per patient per month.

These savings were documented by a recent University of Michigan study of the impact of EHRs in community-based settings, including private practices and hospitals. Researchers compared insurance claims data for patient care provided between January 2005 and June 2009 in three Massachusetts communities that adopted EHRs to six that did not. They found that outpatient spending did not rise as fast in the communities that had adopted EHRs.

"We found 3 percent savings and while that might not sound huge, if it could be sustained or even increased, it would be a substantial amount," said Julia Adler-Milstein, an assistant professor at Michigan's School of Public Health and the study's lead author.

Most of the savings were in radiology. Adler-Milstein suspects doctors ordered fewer imaging studies because they had better access to patients' medical histories...