title: Can health care information technology save babies?
abstract: Electronic medical records (EMRs) facilitate fast and accurate access to patient records, which could improve diagnosis and patient monitoring. Using a 12-year county-level panel, we find that a 10 percent increase in births that occur in hospitals with EMRs reduces neonatal mortality by 16 deaths per 100,000 live births. This is driven by a reduction of deaths from conditions requiring careful monitoring. We also find a strong decrease in mortality when we instrument for EMR adoption using variation in state medical privacy laws. Rough cost-effectiveness calculations suggest that EMRs are associated with a cost of $531,000 per baby’s life saved.
authors.affiliation: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and RAND Corporation.
authors.forename: Amalia R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Catherine E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Tucker
mesh_terms: D001723:Birth Rate / Q000208:ethnology; D057286:Electronic Health Records / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007226:Infant Mortality / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history; D007229:Infant Welfare / Q000191:economics / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008499:Medical Records / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D010361:Patients / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology