title: Is the availability of hospital IT applications associated with a hospital's risk adjusted incidence rate for patient safety indicators: results from 66 Georgia hospitals.
abstract: This study examines the associations between the availability of IT applications in a hospital and that hospital's risk adjusted incidence rate per 1,000 hospitalizations for Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) 15 Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs). The study population consists of a convenience sample of 66 community hospitals in Georgia that completed a Hospital IT survey by December 2003 and provided data to Georgia Hospital Discharge Data Set during 2004. AHRQ's PSI software was used to estimate risk adjusted incidence rates. Differences in means, Pearson correlation coefficients, and multivariate regression analysis were used to determine if the availability of IT applications were associated with better PSI outcomes. This study finds very little statistically significant correlation between the availability of IT applications and risk adjusted PSI incident rate per 1,000
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, 1518 Clifton Road, NE, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. sculler@sph.emory.edu
authors.forename: Steven D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Culler
authors.forename: Jonathan N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Hawley
authors.forename: Vi
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Naylor
authors.forename: Kimberly J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Rask
mesh_terms: D006302:Health Services Research; D006739:Hospital Administration; D006751:Hospital Information Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006764:Hospitals, Community / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D020379:Risk Adjustment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012449:Safety; D014481:United States; D016270:United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality