The use of electronic health records in ambulatory care settings can reduce costs by 3 percent, according to a study in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Researchers studied healthcare costs from commercial claims among nine Massachusetts communities between 2005 and 2009. Three of these communities, in which 806 ambulatory clinicians had adopted EHR systems, served as the study group.
Results showed that in the study communities, the EHR systems reduced overall costs by 3.1 percent. The study's authors note that optimization of EHR use has the potential to save clinicians even more.
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