The effects of computerized medical records on provider efficiency and quality of care.

Abstract

To study the effect of computerized medical records on the efficiency of providers and the quality of care, 245 patient visits were randomly assigned to manual (134 visits) or computerized (111 visits) records during the implementation of a comprehensive medical information system, TMR, in the renal clinic of the Durham VA Medical Center. Data were collected on the time required for the providers to perform their various functions in the clinic. With the exception of prescription writing, the computerized records resulted in significant reductions in the time required for the physicians to obtain data from and enter data into the record (p