Predicting the Impact of an Electronic Health Record on Practice Patterns Using Computational Modeling and Simulation

摘要

The overall purpose of this research study is to discover and apply new knowledge regarding methods to predict the impact of an electronic health record (EHR) on clinical practice guidelines in complex systems such as hospitals. Specifically, the aims of this study are: 1) to build, simulate and validate the accuracy of a computational model representing the current practice patterns in a sample of patients diagnosed with heart failure (HF) and treated in a community hospital; and 2) using computational modeling and simulation, develop a method to predict the effects of best practice guidelines on practice patterns after implementation of an EHR.The model results showed a significant decline (p <.05) in net tests and treatments of 26.22%, total annual process hours of 12.56% and costs by $121,513. Total nurse work-time declined by 30% while physician work time increased by 88%. The results of this study suggest that implementation of an EHR with embedded clinical guidelines can improve the utilization of resources and process delay times in a population of 245 heart failure patients.