A new study comparing 3,000 hospitals at various stages in the adoption of computerized health records has found little difference in the cost and quality of care. "The way electronic medical records are used now has not yet had a real impact on the quality or cost of healthcare," said Ashish K. Jha, MD, an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, who led the research project. The research is to be presented at a conference in Boston, and is a follow-on study to a survey of hospitals' adoption of electronic health records published this year.
