Leveraging health IT to implement principles of patient-centered care can lead to improved health care outcomes, according to a report published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, American Medical News reports.
Patient-centered care is delivered in a way that takes a patient's individual needs and preferences into account.
Report Details
For the report, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University's Evidence-Based Practice Center reviewed 327 research articles published in 1998 or later. They examined whether the articles found that using health IT to implement patient-centered care led to improvements in:
- Patients' health; or
- Health care processes.
Study Findings
According to the researchers, the prior studies suggest that using health IT to advance patient-centered care leads to improved clinical or process outcomes in most cases.
The report also found that certain barriers have posed challenges to using health IT to advance patient-centered care, including:
- Limited patient access to technology; and
- Low computer literacy among clinicians or patients (Berry, American Medical News, 7/9).