Health system re-engineering: a CPRS economic decision model

The fundamental problem with the health care delivery system remains too little health delivered for too great a cost. Information essential to sound clinical and administrative decision making is too frequently missing at the time and place of decision. Automated systems offer opportunities both to improve health and to reduce cost through effective and efficient information management. Information systems are the enabling technology for those business practice changes which improve the benefit-cost profile of a re-engineered delivery system. The Computer-based Patient Record (CPR) is the organizing framework of an enterprise-wide health information system. Since information management is a core function of the health care enterprise, evaluation of the CPR should include its impact on the value of health outcomes and contribution to the organizational mission, rather than solely by benefits which accrue within the delivery system. This paper proposes a model to measure the impact of information technology and specifically a CPR on a re-engineered health care delivery system.