Medical Malpractice Claims and Electronic Medical Records

Despite the benefits of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) for patient care, recent literature suggests that physicians and hospitals may be reluctant to adopt EMRs because of concerns of increased risk of malpractice claims stemming from the legal discoverability of data contained within them. If these concerns are validated by empirical data analysis, then the current government-led push for EMR adoption may have unintended consequences for the medical community. Initial t-test results suggest that adoption of EMRs lowers malpractice risk. However, after controlling for time and hospital covariates through multiple regression techniques, we find no significant relationship between adoption of EMRs and malpractice claim activity. We find no evidence that adoption of EMRs leads to increased malpractice claims despite recent articles suggesting potential increased risk. These results suggest that hospitals can adopt EMRs to realize patient care benefits without concomitantly increasing malpractice risk.