An Very Interesting Benefits Study from the US.

The following report came to my attention last week. A useful web reference to the study can be found at the following URL.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=15224

INVESTING IN HEALTH TECHNOLOGY

Health technology adoption exacts big up-front expenditures by medical groups, but investing $500 million into digitizing health care could amount to savings of between $1 billion and $1.3 billion annually in Oregon, according to study co-authored by the state and Oregon Health Care Quality Corp.

According to the study's authors:

• One-third of the savings would come from eliminating unnecessary medical services, such as duplicate lab tests requested when a provider cannot access a patient's previous test results.
• Two-thirds would come from more efficiently processing medical information, for example, cutting out the back-and-forth that occurs when a pharmacy technician cannot read a physician's handwriting on a faxed prescription.

The United States lags other industrialized nations in adoption of health IT infrastructure like electronic medical records for patients, largely because the costs accrue to cash-strapped medical practices while savings are realized by health plans, employers and patients.

"The important takeaway is that savings don't accrue to those we ask to make the investment. That's why uptake is slow," said Nancy Clarke, executive director of the nonprofit Oregon Health Care Quality Corp.

Source: Robin J. Moody, "Study: $500M investment in health technology could save $1B," Portland Business Journal, November 5, 2007.

For text:

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2007/11/05/daily7.html

For study:

http://www.q-corp.org/q-corp/images/public/pdfs/OR-HIT%20Impact%20Final.pdf

The study is entitled:

Potential Impact of Widespread Adoption of Advanced Health Information Technologies on Oregon Health Expenditures

It was written by David M. Witter, Jr. and Thomas Ricciardi, PhD

The Report was prepared for the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation and Office for Oregon Health Policy and Research.

It is good to see a report which provides a simple and understandable approach to the assessment of potential costs and benefits and which does attempt to identify the scale of the investment required as well as the nature of that investment (i.e. what systems need to be implemented where).

It is a study of this sort, based on credible sources, which should be undertaken as part of a National E-Health Strategy Development process is Australia. It should indeed have been done and published years ago.

In passing I note the study to address this issue in Australia had its methodology outlined in mid-2006 and the study was to be provided to the NEHTA Board in February 2007 according to a presentation from the Benefits Project Leader. Just why this work has never seen the public light of day I will leave as an exercise for the loyal reader.

I commend downloading the Oregon Study to all interested in the area.

David.