In our previous post, we talked about what an EHR and EMR is and their differences. Today, we wanted to share some findings from Gartner, one of the world’s leading research companies, on how these two technologies can and will create substantial real-life benefits to Canada’s health care system. One of their areas of study is improving the efficiency of inpatient space and resources like unnecessary patient readmissions to a hospital.
Effective Use of Inpatient Settings
One of the highest costs of care in Canada falls within acute care settings, like the emergency department, due to patient readmissions. By handling a patient’s post-operative care in a proactive manner, we can reduce the number of patient readmissions, saving time and costs for the patient, and free up bed space for other patients to use. At its current adoption rate, EMRs have generated $334.95M in reallocated health system value and saved 8.5M and 33K hours of patient and providers’ times respectively, contributing to $68.7M in economic productivity each year.
Reduction in Diagnostic Imaging Tests
Duplicated diagnostic imaging is another high cost contributing to Canada’s cost of care. Medical facilities are disconnected in their ability to send and receive data in the interest of the patient. For example, if a patient has symptoms of a severe cough and heads to the ER, the doctor can perform diagnostic imaging. The x-ray images the doctor requests cannot be transferred to another facility seamlessly—it requires a fax machine to facilitate the exchange. If the patient finds that their cough is worsening and goes to see their doctor, they’ll have the patient take another x-ray, creating duplicates and wasting the patients time.
Thankfully, strong evidence has shown that, at its current adoption rate, interoperable EMRs reduce the duplication of diagnostic imaging tests, generating 6.7M in health system value to be reallocated. Patients no longer need to take excess time out of their day to take duplicate imaging tests. This gives back a total of 140K hours to the patient and contributes to $2.9M in economic productivity every year.
EMR Healthcare Benefits as a Whole
While there are other categories that EMRs have significantly improved upon, such as a reduction in duplicated laboratory tests and the duration of visit to the emergency department, it’s important to take a look at how EMRs and EHRs have benefited Canadian health care as whole.
Gartner has found that, at current adoption rates, interconnected health solutions contribute to $1B of health system value every year, the equivalent of saving the costs of 21.6M emergency department visits every year. Overall, time has been saved for both patients (18M hours) and care providers (5.9M hours). For patients, this is the equivalent of waiting 25 lifetimes. For care providers, 5.9M hours is equivalent to the annual working hours of 2,227 care providers. Economic productivity is also vastly improved as well. With $189M reallocated back every year into the economy, this is the equivalent of returning 2,578 Canadians back to the economy.
But what if all care facilities in Canada adopt EMRs? The efficiencies realized by Canada’s health care system would be far greater than what we experience today. At full adoption, a total of $3.9B in health system value could be reallocated, or the equivalent of 21.6M visits to the emergency department. 76M hours of patient wait time, or 106 lifetimes of waiting each year, could be saved. Care providers save 15M hours each year, the equivalent of 5,633 providers working annually and finally, $732M in economic productivity per year can be reallocated back into the economy, returning 9,982 Canadians back to work.
Conclusion
All Canadians benefit from the health care system in one way or another. It is part of our national identity. We’ve only scratched the surface of how EMRs make a difference for the future of health care. Every day, new innovations and iterations to informatics improve the way we care for patients now and into the future. For Gartner’s full study in partnership with Canada Health Infoway, click here.