Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Medical Informatics
Date Submitted: Nov 15, 2023
Date Accepted: Jul 23, 2024
The effects of electronic health records on medical error reduction: An extension of the D&M IS Success Model
ABSTRACT
Background:
Medical errors are becoming a major problem for healthcare providers and those who design health policies. These cause patients' illnesses to worsen over time and can make recovery impossible. For the benefit of patients and the welfare of healthcare providers, a decrease in these errors is required to maintain safe, high-quality patient care.
Objective:
To improve the ability of healthcare professionals to diagnose diseases and reduce medical errors.
Methods:
Data collection at Dr. George Mukhari Academic Hospital (DGMAH) used convenience sampling. Three hundred healthcare professionals were given a self-administered questionnaire: including doctors, dentists, pharmacists, physiologists, and nurses. To test the hypotheses, multiple linear regression was used to evaluate empirical data.
Results:
The results indicate that there is no statistically significant correlation (β = 0.043, t = 0.705, p < 0.05) between the reduction of medical errors (MER) and knowledge quality (KQ). Based on the predictor variables, there is a statistically insignificant negative relationship between MER and information quality (IQ), β = -0.080, t = -1.320, p< 0.05. However, MER and electronic health records (EHR) had a statistically significant relationship (β= 0.125, t = 2.043, p <0.05). In general, the findings indicate that there is a highly positive and statistically significant relationship between the predictor IQ, the diagnosis and treatment of diseases (DTD), better patient care coordination (BCP), service quality (SQ) and EHR and the dependent variable MER.
Conclusions:
Therefore, increasing patient access to medical records for healthcare professionals may significantly improve patient health and well-being. The effectiveness of healthcare organisations' operations can also be increased through better health information systems. Empirical surveys in other public and private hospitals can be used to further test the validated survey instrument.
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Copyright
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