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The impact of health information technology on the management and follow-up of test results-a systematic review

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journal contribution
posted on 2025-01-27, 22:50 authored by A Georgiou, J Li, J Thomas, MR Dahm, JI Westbrook
AbstractObjectiveTo investigate the impact of health information technology (IT) systems on clinicians’ work practices and patient engagement in the management and follow-up of test results.Materials and MethodsA search for studies reporting health IT systems and clinician test results management was conducted in the following databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, ProQuest, and Scopus from January 1999 to June 2018. Test results follow-up was defined as provider follow-up of results for tests that were sent to the laboratory and radiology services for processing or analysis.ResultsThere are some findings from controlled studies showing that health IT can improve the proportion of tests followed-up (15 percentage point change) and increase physician awareness of test results that require action (24–28 percentage point change). Taken as whole, however, the evidence of the impact of health IT on test result management and follow-up is not strong.DiscussionThe development of safe and effective test results management IT systems should pivot on several axes. These axes include 1) patient-centerd engagement (involving shared, timely, and meaningful information); 2) diagnostic processes (that involve the integration of multiple people and different clinical settings across the health care spectrum); and 3) organizational communications (the myriad of multi- transactional processes requiring feedback, iteration, and confirmation) that contribute to the patient care process.ConclusionExisting evidence indicates that health IT in and of itself does not (and most likely cannot) provide a complete solution to issues related to test results management and follow-up.

History

Journal

Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA

Volume

26

Pagination

678-688

Location

Oxford, Eng.

Open access

  • Yes

ISSN

1067-5027

eISSN

1527-974X

Language

eng

Issue

7

Publisher

Oxford University Press