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Electronic Medical Records

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Increasingly, collections of medical records are stored and shared digitally by multiple medical service providers. RAND research has explored the costs of implementing electronic medical record systems; the benefits accrued, including the improved quality of care; the rate of technology adoption; individual privacy concerns; and the role of government in the use and growth of electronic recordkeeping.

Report
Patients Could Help Improve Record Matching
When health providers exchange medical records, the success rate can be as low as 50 percent. The ubiquity of mobile phones offers a promising opportunity to create a patient-empowered system to confirm identities that would allow hospitals and other providers to match records more accurately.
Aug 22, 2018
Report
Quality of Patient Care Drives Physician Satisfaction; Doctors Have Concerns About Electronic Health Records
Being able to provide high-quality health care is a primary driver of job satisfaction among physicians, and obstacles to quality patient care are a source of stress for them. For example, the systems for electronic health records in use today are cumbersome to operate and contribute to their dissatisfaction.
Oct 9, 2013

Explore Electronic Medical Records

Journal Article
Disparities in Postoperative Opioid Prescribing by Race and Ethnicity: An Electronic Health Records-Based Observational Study from Northern California, 2015-2020
To examine racial and ethnic disparities in postoperative opioid prescribing.
May 24, 2023
Blog
RAND Turns 75: A Look Through the Decades At World-Changing Research
From anticipating the Space Age in the 1940s to studying gun policy and COVID-19 responses in the 2020s, RAND is celebrating 75 years of research that has made a difference.
May 8, 2023
Journal Article
A Pragmatic Parallel Arm Randomized-Controlled Trial of a Multi-Pronged Electronic Health Record-Based Clinical Decision Support Tool Protocol to Reduce Low-Value Antipsychotic Prescriptions Among Older Adults with Alzheimer's and Related Dementias
We designed a pragmatic randomized-controlled trial to measure the impact of a behavioral economic electronic health record (EHR) clinical decision support (CDS) intervention to reduce physician prescriptions of new antipsychotic medications among patients with ADRD.
May 4, 2023
Commentary
The Problems Facing VA Modernization Are Bigger Than Its Software Systems
The list of criticisms of the new Veterans Affairs electronic health record system, Oracle Cerner, is long. It's expensive, downtime has been high, and doctors' orders have gone missing, putting patient safety at risk. How did this implementation go so wrong? And what should be done now?
Apr 28, 2023
Journal Article
User-centered Design of a Scalable, Electronic Health Record-Integrated Remote Symptom Monitoring Intervention for Patients with Asthma and Providers in Primary Care
The objective of this article is to determine user and electronic health records (EHR) integration requirements for a scalable remote symptom monitoring intervention for asthma patients and their providers.
Jan 27, 2023
Journal Article
Why APIs? Anticipated Value, Barriers, and Opportunities for Standards-Based Application Programming Interfaces in Healthcare: Perspectives of US Thought Leaders
To better understand the landscape of application programming interface (API) use cases, we interviewed U.S. thought leaders involved in developing and implementing standard-based APIs.
Jan 27, 2023
Journal Article
Implications of Missingness in Self-Reported Data for Estimating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Medicaid Quality Measures
This study demonstrates the feasibility of using Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG) in a Medicaid population, producing imputed estimates for more than 99% of beneficiaries.
Nov 10, 2022
Journal Article
Assessment of Postoperative Opioid Prescriptions Before and After Implementation of a Mandatory Prescription Drug Monitoring Program
In this study of adult patients who received a postoperative prescription for opioid medication, mandatory consultation with EHR-based alerts was associated with decreases in prescription quantities.
Mar 29, 2022
News Release
Audio-Only Telehealth Remains Common at Safety Net Health Clinics; Trend Raises Questions About Quality
Rapid adoption of telehealth helped safety net clinics in California to maintain consistent levels of service after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the use of audio-only care has persisted in the clinics longer than in other types of health care settings.
Mar 15, 2022
Report
Audio-Only Telehealth Remains Common at Safety Net Clinics; Raises Questions About Quality
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid adoption of telehealth helped safety net clinics in California maintain service. But the use of audio-only care has persisted in the clinics, raising questions about the quality of care and equity for low-income patients.
Mar 14, 2022
Journal Article
Assessment of Electronic Health Records for Infectious Disease Surveillance: Final Mapping Exercise Report
The objective of the project is to investigate the current status of EHR systems in the EU and European Economic Area and the potential capacity for the use of these data for surveillance of infectious diseases within ECDC's remit.
Dec 1, 2021
Journal Article
Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Health Care: Telehealth in 2021
Book chapter reviewing the current state of telehealth use.
Dec 1, 2021
Journal Article
Use of Real-World Evidence for Regulatory Approval and Coverage of Medical Devices: A Landscape Assessment
Use of real-world evidence in FDA processes has the potential to contribute important evidence to drug approval processes.
Nov 3, 2021
Journal Article
Electronic Health Data Quality and Population Health Management Algorithms
In this perspective piece, we explore the implications of poor quality electronic health data on the use of population health management algorithms for patients, clinicians, and policymakers.
Aug 27, 2021
Journal Article
Assessment of Variation in Electronic Health Record Capabilities and Reported Clinical Quality Performance in Ambulatory Care Clinics, 2014–2017
Between 2014 and 2017, clinics with EHRs having greater capabilities had better quality measures than other clinics, but clinics that gained EHR capabilities during this time had smaller increases in quality that were not statistically significant.
May 4, 2021
Journal Article
Low-Value Proton Pump Inhibitor Prescriptions Among Older Adults at a Large Academic Health System
Older adults are particularly vulnerable to complications from proton pump inhibitor drugs. We sought to characterize the prevalence of potentially low-value PPI prescriptions among older adults to inform a quality improvement intervention.
Apr 9, 2021
Journal Article
Visualization of Electronic Health Record Data for Decision-Making in Diabetes and Congestive Heart Failure
The aim of this study is to study the impact of graphical representation of health record data on physician decision-making to inform the design of health information technology.
Dec 22, 2020
Journal Article
Health Information Technology for Ambulatory Care in Health Systems
The relatively low uptake of health IT functionalities important to care improvement suggests substantial opportunities for further improving adoption of ambulatory health IT even among the current EHR users.
Dec 18, 2020
Journal Article
Optimizing Health IT to Improve Health System Performance: A Work in Progress
We describe activities that health systems are pursuing to better leverage health IT to improve performance, in a qualitative thematic approach.
Dec 4, 2020
Journal Article
Common Laboratory Results Frequently Misunderstood by a Sample of Mechanical Turk Users
Use of Mechanical Turk to determine how well patients understand common laboratory test results.
Oct 2, 2020

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RAND Topic:
Electronic Medical Records

Research conducted by

Researcher Spotlight

Katherine I. Morley

Senior Research Leader

Kate Morley (she/her) is a senior research leader at the RAND Corporation. She works primarily with RAND Europe in the Health and Wellbeing Research Group. Morley has a background in epidemiology and biostatistics, and in-depth understanding of a broad range of quantitative and qualitative…
Sara E. Heins

Policy Researcher

Sara E. Heins is a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. Her research interests include substance use and dependence, injury, occupational health, health information technology, maternal and child health, and emergency medical services. Current RAND projects include a review of changes to…

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