Abstract
BackgroundTo evaluate whether or not the utilization of Health Information Technologies (HITs) in Quality Improvement Methodologies (QIMs) has impacts on QIMs’ efficiency, throughput and financial outcomes at healthcare organizations and physician practices in the United States.MethodsThis is a retrospective observational study that was conducted between the years of 2014 and 2015 and relied on two data sources: the Dorenfest Institute dataset and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics data source. In addition, questionnaires were submitted to collect data about how healthcare settings in the United States had been utilizing QIMs in the last 10 years. The submitted questionnaire invitations yielded 144 responses from 134 hospitals and 10 physician practices. Descriptive statistics were used to assess the condition of the data. This involved the utilization of Box-Whisker plots to visualize the data shape, outliers and variation. The Gamma correlation analysis method was used to evaluate the statistical relationships between the QIM outcomes, efficiency, throughput and financial outcomes, and the employment of HIT systems in QIMs.ResultsThe study found that 99.3% of the healthcare organizations and physician practices had implemented at least one QIM over the last 10 years. In the QIM implementations, the total numbers of reported utilization instances of manual data collection, electronic health records, lab information systems, pharmacy information systems, computerized provider order entry and radiology information systems were 387, 352, 205, 185, 180 and 158, respectively. Based on a 95% confidence limit, the Gamma statistical test has shown an inverse correlation between the exclusive utilization of manual data collection and the overall QIM efficiency (p = 0.047, Gamma = −0.388) and throughput (p = 0.012, Gamma = −0.593) outcomes. However, the overall QIM financial outcomes were found to have a statistically insignificant correlation (p = 0.159).ConclusionsThe study has revealed statistically significant negative impacts on QIMs’ efficiency and throughput outcomes when the manual data collection is the sole method used in QIM implementations. This also indicates a positive correlation between the QIMs’ efficiency and throughput outcomes and the HIT utilization in QIMs.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12911-016-0395-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
To evaluate whether or not the utilization of Health Information Technologies (HITs) in Quality Improvement Methodologies (QIMs) has impacts on Quality improvement methodologies (QIM)’ efficiency, throughput and financial outcomes at healthcare organizations and physician practices in the United States
The submitted questionnaire invitations yielded 144 responses from 134 hospitals and 10 physician practices, representing 2.3% of the 5723 hospitals that exist in the United States [32]
It is important to highlight that in many cases, multiple data sources had been used by the healthcare organization as part of a QIM implementation
Summary
To evaluate whether or not the utilization of Health Information Technologies (HITs) in Quality Improvement Methodologies (QIMs) has impacts on QIMs’ efficiency, throughput and financial outcomes at healthcare organizations and physician practices in the United States. Quality improvement is one of the key challenges facing healthcare organizations, health government agencies, and patient safety advocates [1, 2] This issue has been highlighted in scientific and professional literatures. In Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that one of the healthcare quality issues, Health Care-Associated Infections (HCAIs), causes 16 million extra-days of hospital stay annually, resulting in financial losses of approximately € 7 billion every year (considering direct costs only [6]). Such serious alarms and others highlight the importance of implementing solutions that assist in overcoming quality of service challenges
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
