Computerized protocol for preventive medicine: a controlled self-audit in family practice

• HIT Description: Computerized decision support with guidelines. More info...
  
• Purpose of Study: Asses the efficacy of a preventive medicine protocol for adult health maintenance displayed on a desk-top microcomputer.
  
• Years of study: 1985-1987
  
• Study Design: RCT
  
• Outcomes: Impact on health care effectivness/quality, Impact on efficiency, utilization, costs
  

• Settings: At community health center in Israel, 222 patients participated in the study.
• Intervention: A preventive medicine protocol for adult health maintenance displayed on a desk-top microcomputer was compared to a control.
• Evaluation Method: Measures of preventive services, and computer utilization.
• Healthcare Utilization: The use of computers lengthened the average consultation time from 8.5 minutes to 10 minutes.
• Quality of Care and Patient Safety Outcome: Significantly more preventive medicine items such as smoking, height, blood group, tetanus and rubella immunization status and family planning had been recorded for patients in the computerized group. For other items, requiring more frequent measurements, computerization produced an advantage only for blood pressure and breast examination, but not for weight, occult blood and serum cholesterol. Recording rates increased significantly for patients in both the control and the computerized groups for all the items.