Title: The impact of electronic medical record systems on hospital efficiency

Authors: C.Christopher Lee; Heechang Shin; Caroline Klimm; Christopher Palmero; Stephanie Hughes

Addresses: Department of Management and Organization, School of Business, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, 06050, USA ' Department of Information Systems and Business Analytics, LaPenta School of Business, Iona University, New Rochelle, NY, 10801, USA ' MBA Program, School of Business, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, 06050, USA ' MBA Program, School of Business, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, 06050, USA ' MBA Program, School of Business, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, 06050, USA

Abstract: This study investigated whether hospitals across US that implemented electronic medical record systems (EMR) were more efficient than hospitals that did not implement EMR and examined control variable effects on hospital efficiency. This paper used the 2015 American Hospital Association datasets. To measure hospital efficiency, this research developed data envelopment analysis (DEA) models with four inputs (hospital beds, operating expenses, full-time physicians, and full-time registered nurses) and four outputs (operating revenue, operating margin, outpatient visits, and inpatient visits). To explore the control effect, this article used four control variables (location type, teaching hospital status, ownership status and region). The evidence showed that hospitals with larger bed counts, hospitals in metropolitan areas, teaching hospitals, non-governmental institutions, for-profit organisations, and hospitals in the Northeast with partial or full EMR systems were more efficient than the other groups.

Keywords: electronic medical records; hospital efficiency; size; location; teaching status; ownership status; region.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTPM.2023.129467

International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, 2023 Vol.23 No.1, pp.1 - 19

Received: 05 Dec 2020
Accepted: 15 Jun 2021
Published online: 10 Mar 2023 *