Does Initiating or Changing a Hospital EMR Lead to Adverse Outcomes?

Implementing an electronic medical record (EMR) system or changing from one EMR to another represents a major shift in hospital process and might be associated with adverse short-term outcomes (J Am Med Inform Assoc 2014; 21:1053). Investigators used 2010–2012 Medicare data to compare 17 hospital systems that transitioned to new EMRs in a single day (single “go-live” date) with 399 control hospitals in the same regions; 90 days before and after EMR transition dates (or control index dates) were evaluated. Hospitals that transitioned to new EMRs using staggered rollouts (over more than a single day) were excluded.

Thirty-day mortality, 30-day readmission rates, and adverse event rates were unchanged before and after EMR transitions in study h…