Medical Malpractice Claims and Electronic Medical Records
16 Pages Posted: 25 Nov 2011
Date Written: October 4, 2011
Abstract
Despite the benefits of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) for patient care, recent literature suggests that physicians and hospitals may be reluctant to adopt EMRs because of concerns of increased risk of malpractice claims stemming from the legal discoverability of data contained within them. If these concerns are validated by empirical data analysis, then the current government-led push for EMR adoption may have unintended consequences for the medical community. Initial t-test results suggest that adoption of EMRs lowers malpractice risk. However, after controlling for time and hospital covariates through multiple regression techniques, we find no significant relationship between adoption of EMRs and malpractice claim activity. We find no evidence that adoption of EMRs leads to increased malpractice claims despite recent articles suggesting potential increased risk. These results suggest that hospitals can adopt EMRs to realize patient care benefits without concomitantly increasing malpractice risk.
Keywords: healthcare, malpractice, electronic medical records
JEL Classification: I00
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Paper statistics
Recommended Papers
-
First Do No Harm?: Tort Reform and Birth Outcomes
By Janet Currie and W. Bentley Macleod
-
Medical Malpractice Reform and Physicians in High-Risk Specialties
By Jonathan Klick and Thomas Stratmann
-
Does Malpractice Liability Keep the Doctor Away? Evidence from Tort Reform Damage Caps
-
An Empirical Study of the Impact of Tort Reforms on Medical Malpractice Payments
-
Defensive Medicine and Disappearing Doctors?
By Katherine Baicker and Amitabh Chandra
-
The Impact of Tort Reform on Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Premiums
By Ronen Avraham, Leemore S. Dafny, ...
-
The Impact of Tort Reform on Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Premiums
By Ronen Avraham, Leemore S. Dafny, ...
-
An Ehealth Diptych: The Impact of Privacy Regulation on Medical Error and Malpractice Litigation
-
Electronic Discovery and the Adoption of Information Technology