DETROIT – For the second year in a row, Detroit Medical Center executives say they have achieved improved patient safety and saved $5 million to boot. They credit their good fortune to DMC's system-wide electronic medical system.


Computer-based healthcare information processing created major improvements in quality of care and cost-savings across DMC's eight hospitals, officials said, making it possible to monitor critical tasks such as treating pressure ulcers and preventing medication errors. 
DMC’s $50 million EHR system powered by Kansas City, Mo-based Cerner Corp., was rolled out in stages over a 12-year period, starting in 1998. 
"The savings are only part of the story," said Chief Nursing Officer Patricia Natale. “Thanks to EMR, we're now seeing a dramatic reduction in the length of hospital stays due to pressure sores, along with a dramatic reduction of drug errors through EMR-enabled medication scanning."


"The latest surveys show that EMR has helped to reduce medication errors by up to 75 percent," said CMIO Leland Babitch, MD. "Obviously, that's a major gain for patients - especially given the fact that medication errors account for the majority of accidental deaths and injuries at U.S. hospitals."


The U.S. Institute of Medicine has estimated that up to 100,000 patients die as a result of hospital errors annually.


The impact of the electronic medical record system on the treatment of pressure ulcers was especially noticeable, said DMC quality-of-care administrators.


They noted that the chronic sores often require extended hospital stays and thus drive up costs. But the most recent DMC study of severe pressure ulcer cases showed that close EMR monitoring of bedsores reduced the average length of stay required to treat them by nearly three full days last year, compared with the average length of ulcer-triggered stays before EMR monitoring began in 2008.


The DMC study concluded that the reduction in the length of pressure ulcer-related hospital stays – in a system that admits more than 75,000 patients each year – was now helping to generate more than $4.5 million a year in cost savings.


"The data on electronic medical records and patient safety and quality of care are clear are convincing by now," said DMC Vice President for Quality and Safety Michelle Schreiber, MD. “The new numbers on bedsores and length of stays show how computer-based recordkeeping helps caregivers to take better care of patients day in and day out."


"The DMC has spent $50 million on building a powerful EMR system over the past five or six years, said Detroit Medical Center President and CEO Michael Duggan. “DMC implemented an electronic health record with the patient top of mind – to provide “a state-of-the-art healing center. At the same time, the ability to greatly reduce healthcare costs via electronic medical records is an added bonus.”