The Impact of eHealth on the Quality and Safety of Health Care: You Heard Much of This First On Healthcare Renewal ...

A PLoS article was recently published on health IT's impacts on healthcare quality and safety. In the article, a form of meta-research was performed; systematic review articles were collected and then reviewed systematically.

Black AD, Car J, Pagliari C, Anandan C, Cresswell K, et al. (2011) The Impact of eHealth on the Quality and Safety of Health Care: A Systematic Overview. PLoS Med 8(1): e1000387. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000387.

A text version can be seen at this link and a PDF downloaded at this link.

I will reproduce only the abstract here, and then make a few comments (over and above the hundreds of posts on these issues I've authored at this blog since 2004):

The Impact of eHealth on the Quality and Safety of Health Care: A Systematic Overview.

Ashly D. Black¹, Josip Car¹, Claudia Pagliari², Chantelle Anandan², Kathrin Cresswell², Tomislav Bokun¹, Brian McKinstry², Rob Procter³, Azeem Majeed⁴, Aziz Sheikh^2*

1 eHealth Unit, Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, 2 eHealth Research Group, Centre for Population Health Sciences, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 3 National Centre for e-Social Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom, 4 Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

Abstract

Background

There is considerable international interest in exploiting the potential of digital solutions to enhance the quality and safety of health care. Implementations of transformative eHealth technologies are underway globally, often at very considerable cost. [I believe it would be more accurate to write "always at considerable cost, with generous profits being made by the IT merchants, implementers and consultants"- ed.] In order to assess the impact of eHealth solutions on the quality and safety of health care, and to inform policy decisions on eHealth deployments, we undertook a systematic review of systematic reviews assessing the effectiveness and consequences of various eHealth technologies on the quality and safety of care.

Methods and Findings

We developed novel search strategies, conceptual maps of health care quality, safety, and eHealth interventions, and then systematically identified, scrutinised, and synthesised the systematic review literature. Major biomedical databases were searched to identify systematic reviews published between 1997 and 2010. Related theoretical, methodological, and technical material was also reviewed. We identified 53 systematic reviews that focused on assessing the impact of eHealth interventions on the quality and/or safety of health care and 55 supplementary systematic reviews providing relevant supportive information. This systematic review literature was found to be generally of substandard quality with regards to methodology, reporting, and utility. We thematically categorised eHealth technologies into three main areas: (1) storing, managing, and transmission of data; (2) clinical decision support; and (3) facilitating care from a distance. We found that despite support from policymakers, there was relatively little empirical evidence to substantiate many of the claims made in relation to these technologies. Whether the success of those relatively few solutions identified to improve quality and safety would continue if these were deployed beyond the contexts in which they were originally developed, has yet to be established. Importantly, best practice guidelines in effective development and deployment strategies are lacking.

Conclusions

There is a large gap between the postulated and empirically demonstrated benefits of eHealth technologies. [You've heard that here before - ed.]

In addition, there is a lack of robust research on the risks [I believe it would be more accurate to say there's been a suppression of research and/or of publicity on the risks - ed.] of implementing these technologies and their cost-effectiveness has yet to be demonstrated [in other words, healthcare IT is an experimental technology. You've heard that here before, too - ed.], despite being frequently promoted by policymakers and “techno-enthusiasts” as if this was a given.

[In other words, there's an irrational - or contrived - exuberance. You've heard that here before, too - ed.]

In the light of the paucity of evidence in relation to improvements in patient outcomes, as well as the lack of evidence on their cost-effectiveness, it is vital that future eHealth technologies are evaluated against a comprehensive set of measures, ideally throughout all stages of the technology's life cycle. [You've heard that here before, too - ed.]

Such evaluation should be characterised by careful attention to socio-technical factors to maximise the likelihood of successful implementation and adoption.

[You've heard that here before, too, as well as at my site "Contemporary Issues in Medical Informatics: Common Examples of Healthcare Information Technology Difficulties", as a matter of fact previously entitled "Sociotechnologic Issues in Medical Informatics...", started in 1999 - ed.]

I can add these additional comments:

• The findings of this study were of no surprise to me or likely to readers of this blog. I've been writing on these issues since the 1990's, and on this blog since 2004.

• In the main article itself it is stated "... there remains a disparity between the evidence-based principles that underpin health care generally and the political, pragmatic, and commercial drivers of decision making in the commissioning of eHealth tools and services." In other words, the rigor of medical science itself is lacking in healthcare IT. I've written that repeatedly here and elsewhere. I ask again: how can IT "transform" ot "revolutionize" healthcare when the culture of IT itself is in need of reform?

• Also stated in the article's body was this: "Risks largely went ignored apart from anecdotal evidence of time-costs associated with recording of data due to both end-user skill and the inflexibility of structured data, increased costs of EHRs, and a decrease in patient-centeredness within the consultation." See my prior post "MAUDE and HIT Risks: Mother Mary, What in God's Name is Going on Here?" for what I find as deeply concerning ("hair-raising") revelations regarding risk that you should think about next time you find yourself in a computerized hospital or doctor's office.

• Also in the article body: "Our major finding from reviewing the literature is that empirical evidence for the beneficial impact of most eHealth technologies is often absent or, at best, only modest. While absence of evidence does not equate with evidence of ineffectiveness, reports of negative consequences indicate that evaluation of risks – anticipated or otherwise – is essential. Clinical informatics should be no less concerned with safety and efficacy than the pharmaceutical industry. [Having worked in both sectors, hospital and pharma , you've read that here before - ed.] Given this, there is a pressing need for further evaluations before substantial sums of money are committed [as you've read here in numerous posts, that's BEFORE, NOT DURING OR AFTER - ed.] to large-scale national deployments under the auspices of improving health care quality and/or safety." Are governments listening, I ask?
  

• Study methodology and source material limitations were noted. However, also noted was this: "Our greatest cause for concern was the weakness of the evidence base itself. A strong evidence base is characterised by quantity, quality, and consistency. Unfortunately, we found that the eHealth evidence base falls short in all of these respects. In addition, relative to the number of eHealth implementations that have taken place, the number of evaluations is comparatively small." In my view, national re-engineering programs involving a large portion of the economy and a critical societal function should not be undertaken when the evidence base is weak and the number of evaluations is small. Further, national leaders should not be making statements of certainty such as made by the HHS ONC office as I wrote about at "Science or Politics? The New England Journal and The 'Meaningful Use' Regulation for Electronic Health Records" and at "Blumenthal on health IT safety: nothing to see here, move along."

• This article might be compared to the Dec. 2009 Milbank Quarterly article "Tensions and Paradoxes in Electronic Patient Record Research: A Systematic Literature Review Using the Meta-narrative Method" by Greenhalgh, Potts, Wong, Bark and Swinglehurst at University College London. I wrote about that article at this link. It was also a meta-analysis; its major conclusion was that "the tensions and paradoxes revealed in this study extend and challenge previous reviews and suggest that the evidence base for some EPR programs is more limited than is often assumed."

Read the entire PLoS article at the links above.

-- SS