Rand report identifies the Regenstrief Institute as an internationally recognized health-care information pioneer and source of evidence on impact of information technology on quality of health care
A new Rand report, Costs and Benefits of Health Information Technology, and a study published in the 16 May 2006 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine which summarizes the report, identify the Regenstrief Institute as an internationally recognized health-care information pioneer and the source of nearly one-fourth of the high quality evidence on the impact of information technology on the quality of health care.
That information informs decision-makers and health-care providers as they adopt technology to make the delivery of the nation's health care safer, more effective and more efficient.
The new report, funded by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), looked at studies that have examined the impact of health-care technology on the quality of health care, as well as the costs and organizational changes needed to implement information technology systems for heath care for the smaller medical practices and hospitals that constitute the majority of the nation's health care providers.
A previous Rand study reported that wide spread adoption of electronic medical records and other health information technology could improve the quality of medical care and save more than $81 billion annually.
"Computer storage of medical records has already transformed patient care and research within institutions by providing instant access to the patient data needed to manage and study patients' acute (immediate) medical problems," said Regenstrief Institute director Clement McDonald, professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
"The next step is to provide the same access across institutions to provide the same capabilities wherever the patient presents for care in order to improve prevention and the care of chronic (long term) medical conditions".
Over the past three decades, the institute's research scientists have developed the Regenstrief Medical Records System.
Over 32 million physician orders have been entered into the computerized order entry system of the RMRS that provides unique clinical decision support and guidelines.
RMRS has a database of three million patients, with 900 million discrete, on-line results, 16 million text reports including diagnostic studies, procedure results, operative notes, discharge summaries, and 50 million radiology images.
The RMRS serves as the day-to-day electronic medical records system at a 319-bed public hospital and its community clinics.
Regenstrief's informaticians have created the Indiana Network for Patient Care, the USA's oldest and largest regional electronic medical records system covering 15 hospitals in central Indiana which allows physicians caring for the patient, to view as a single virtual record much of a patient's previous care.
Building upon RMRS and INPC, the Indiana Health Information Exchange, a non-profit corporation for sharing clinical information among health-care providers and other health care entities is dedicated to improving the quality, safety and efficiency of health care in the state of Indiana.
Regenstrief's informatics group also has pioneered international electronic message standards for medical records including the development of HL7, the standard for electronic data interchange in health care.
They have developed the Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (Loinc) system, a standard nomenclature (currently over 41,000 observation terms) that enables the electronic transmission of clinical data from laboratories to hospitals, physicians' offices and payers for clinical care and management purposes.
Regenstrief informatics studies have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association and numerous other peer reviewed journals.
Dr McDonald, who has led the institute's informatics physician brain trust for over 30 years, and Regenstrief Institute Research Scientist Marc Overhage, Indiana University professor of medicine and president and CEO of IHIE, are available to discuss adoption of information technology by health-care providers.
