New publication Chair for Health Economics, Policy and Management

The data from the first national measurement of the maturity level of hospitals with regard to digitalization in Germany can be combined with various hospital quality data. This allows systematic investigation of correlations. An analysis of such correlations has now been published in an article in the Journal of Medical Systems.

Highlights from the study are:

1. We were able to assign individual parts of the DigitalRadar survey questionnaire to specific processes (e.g. admission to the emergency department).
2. We examined the relationship between process digitization or the DigitalRadar score as a whole with two process and two outcome quality indicators.
3. There was no correlation with process quality and an ambivalent correlation with outcome quality. For example, there is a weak correlation between higher digitalization and a lower mortality ratio of patients hospitalized for outpatient-acquired pneumonia. At the same time, higher digitization is associated with a higher ratio of new cases with pressure ulcers/ decubitus.
4. We conclude that the process quality indicators cannot sufficiently measure variation between hospitals and may not be adequate for showing digitalization effects. Furthermore, we recommend further studies with longitudinal data to examine causal relationships and within-hospital effects.

We would like to thank all colleagues and supporters of the DigitalRadar and the hospitals participating in the DigitalRadar measurement.

The full paper can be found here.