Trinity Health's Adoption of Health Care IT Shown to Improve Savings and Quality

The U.S. health care system could save lives as well as $162 billion annually with widespread use of health care information technology (HIT), according to a two-year study by the RAND Corporation released September 14, 2005. The study is the first of its kind to project both the savings and health benefits that could result from nation-wide adoption of HIT.

Savings are already being seen at Trinity Health, Novi, Mich., which is currently engaged in implementing Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and other clinical systems at 23 member hospitals across the country.

"We saw variable pharmacy costs drop by $6 million in an electronic environment versus a paper environment," said Narendra Kini, MD, Executive Vice President, Clinical Operations Improvement, Trinity Health. "If you translate that figure across our 23 hospitals, the total pharmacy savings are estimated to be $18 million annually. But the biggest benefits we've seen are the reduction of adverse drug events, quality improvements in clinical indicators, and more efficient work patterns by our physicians and nurses."

Trinity Health's computer-generated system of reporting adverse drug events (ADE) has resulted in physicians modifying medication orders 25,000 times over a four-year period. According to the RAND study, each avoided ADE could save $1,000 to $2,000 in unnecessary health care costs while improving the quality of patient care.

ADE adoption is one element of Trinity Health's $280-million initiative known as Project Genesis that will create a common platform for not only clinical information systems but also revenue-cycle and supply-chain management by 2008. All Trinity Health hospitals have ADE alert systems in place, and seven hospitals in Michigan and Iowa have launched computerized physician order entry (CPOE), with a new pharmacy system, online nursing documentation and EMR, and a new revenue management system.

A primary goal of Project Genesis is to leverage changes in people, process and technology to increase patient safety and quality care. Project Genesis is fundamentally changing the way Trinity Health's physicians look at drug orders, clinical quality indicators and error reporting.