The Impact of Health Information Technology for Early Detection of Patient Deterioration on Mortality and Length of Stay in the Hospital Acute Care Setting: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

To evaluate the impact of health information technology (HIT) for early detection of patient deterioration on patient mortality and length of stay (LOS) in acute care hospital settings.

A Reminder of Organizational Safety in the ICU in 2022

“…We read with interest the article by Herasevich et al (1), who evaluated the impact of health information technology on early detection of morbidity and mortality in acute-care hospital settings. The intervention was associated with improved outcomes only in meta-analysis of pre-post studies (not randomized controlled studies).…”

“…ICU patients deserve a highly skilled, competent team that understands and implements safety culture. Global efforts to reduce the burden of patient harm have achieved substantial change in many healthcare settings; Herasevich et al (1) reminded us of organizational safety in the ICU, an area where more needs to be explored, published, and put into practice.…”

Saved by the Bell—Automated Paging Alerts to Improve Sepsis Bundle Compliance*

“…The study by Leisman et al (1) represents an essential step toward the evaluation of EMR algorithms in an interventional clinical trial. To date, most studies of EMR-based algorithms and monitoring systems have been retrospective or pre-post studies (2, 3). There is a paucity of randomized controlled trials.…”

A Call for a Consensus Approach to the Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of Early Warning Systems*

“…In this issue of Critical Care Medicine , Herasevich et al (2) present a meta-analysis evaluating the impact of health information technology on mortality and length of stay through the early detection of patient deterioration. This meta-analysis addresses an important question in a burgeoning field with hundreds of studies, but no global interpretation of the benefits from EWS and no clear direction for the bedside clinician.…”