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Study: EMRs can cut paid malpractice settlements

November 30, 2008 — 7:21pm ET | By Anne Zieger
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A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine has concluded that using EMRs may lower paid malpractice settlement rates for doctors. The study concludes doctors who actively use EMRs are seeing a trend toward lower (and fewer) payouts; 6.1 percent of physicians with EMRs and 10.8 percent of those without them have paid malpractice settlements in the preceding 10 years.

This follows announcements by a small number of malpractice insurers over the past year or two that they'd charge lower rates to doctors who used EMRs, suggesting that they too have see lower payouts.

The study, which looked at survey responses from 1,140 practicing physicians in Massachusetts in 2005, compared the physicians' demographics and the length and extent of their EMR use. When it came to malpractice data, researchers compared the presence or absence of malpractice claims of doctors with or without EMRs, including only settled, paid claims.

To look at more study detail:
- read this Healthcare IT News piece

Related Articles:
EMRs show promise in easing malpractice cost
New EMR incentives--or threats?

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Comments

By Marshall Maglothin | Posted 1:08pm | December 1, 2008

I would caution using this study as a justification for EMR:
1) Coorelation does not show causation; practices adopting EMR may be the larger, more sophisticated practices that also have on-going risk management programs and education.
2) EMR makes it very easy to just "click and populate". Thus, EMR can provide a false sense of E&M documentation completeness, which if shown to be a consistent pattern, could be used by the prosecution - much the same as having a detailed Compliance Plan that is neither updated nor followed.

I support EMR adoption 100% and have been a very successful adopter of EMR (since 2000); I just think physicians should be accurately aware of EMR's hidden costs, significant benefits, and potential early ROI if planned properly.

Blue Oak Consulting LLC
mmaglothin@cox.net

By Anonymous | Posted 1:15pm | December 1, 2008

Calling something a "trend" that didn't reach statistical significance means that there is no trend. To be clear, there is no association, no causality, no support in this article for the notion that EMR use has any effect at all on the number of settled malpractice claims. This is what we used to call a negative result. Trying to spin it into something it's not is intellectually dishonest, and in this case promises yet another "benefit" from EMR adoption that has no scientific basis.

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