Healthcare Technology Featured Article

October 02, 2012

Kaiser Permanente Study Shows People with Diabetes do Better when EHRS Used


More than 25 million adults and children suffer from diabetes in the U.S. But a new Kaiser Permanente study has found that use of electronic health records (EHRs) may help in monitoring increases in dosages in drug treatment, overall monitoring, and risk-factor control among patients with diabetes, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study.

In the study, which appears in the current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers noted greater improvements among patients with poorer control of their diabetes and lipids.

For the first time in a large population, EHRs have been shown to help clinicians better target treatment changes and follow-up testing for patients with diabetes mellitus, or Type 2 diabetes, which is often brought on by obesity or high cholesterol.  

“What we saw in this study is that the EHR really helped our alignment with quality measures and clinical guidelines for treatment,” said Marc Jaffe, M.D., clinical leader, Kaiser Permanente Northern California Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Program, in a statement. “Increases in information availability, decision support and order-entry functionality help clinicians to identify the most appropriate patients for drug-treatment intensification and retesting, which leads to better care of patients with diabetes.”

EHRs have been getting a bad rap lately, as clinicians have been accused of fraud when using them.

But ultimately, use of an EHR was associated with improved HbA1c and LDL-C levels among all patients, according to Mary Reed, DrPH, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research and the lead author of the study.  

HbA1c is the average level of blood sugar (glucose) over the previous three months. It shows how well patients are controlling their diabetes. LDL-C levels are cholesterol measurements.

The study included 169,711 patients with diabetes mellitus in Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California integrated care delivery system.  

Kaiser Permanente was able to do the study with the help of Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect, which allowed researchers to examine data and evaluate the EHR in 17 hospitals and 45 medical office buildings.

This study follows previous research published in Health Affairs in 2010 which showed that “secure patient-physician email messaging improves the effectiveness of care for patients with diabetes and hypertension,” according to the statement.




Edited by Brooke Neuman
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