In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, researchers at the University of Michigan Health System wanted to assess whether the use of health information exchange—in this case, Epic’s Care Everywhere—was associated with better care quality in the ED. They examined data from 2,163 patients who were seen in the ED over the course of one year for whom clinicians requested and viewed outside information, either through Care Everywhere or through the traditional method of faxing or scanning the information.

After comparing these two groups, the researchers found that data requested using Care Everywhere was received 58.5 minutes faster on average. For each hour of access time saved, visit length was reduced by a similar amount, and charges were 6.3% lower. In addition, getting information faster through Care Everywhere helped 2% of the patients studied avoid an unnecessary ED admission.

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