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Dr. Bowles is van Ameringen Professor in Nursing Excellence and Director of the Center for Integrative Science in Aging, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Dr. Dykes is Senior Nurse Scientist, Director of the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice, Director of the Center for Nursing Excellence, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; and Dr. Demiris is Alumni Endowed Professor in Nursing, Professor in Biomedical and Health Informatics, School of Medicine, and Director, Clinical Informatics and Patient Centered Technologies, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. Dr. Demiris is also Graduate Program Director, Biomedical and Health Informatics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
The authors have disclosed no potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.
Using health information technology (HIT) to improve care and outcomes for older adults is a growing program of research, propelled by recent transformative policies such as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act (Blumenthal, 2010; Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2011) and the IOM report (2010) titled The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health . Both documents call for the implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) and HIT solutions to improve the safety, quality, and efficiency of care. Several nurse scientists are at the forefront of advancing this work, particularly using EHRs, decision support, and telehealth. The current commentary highlights examples of recent research (i.e., from 2010 to 2014) led by nurse scientists using HIT to improve patient safety and the quality and efficiency of patient care. Future opportunities for gerontological nurse scientists interested in blending the care of older adults and HIT will be discussed, and strategies to increase health care providers' and nurses' capacity to engage in such innovative research will be suggested.
Using The EHR to Improve Outcomes for Older Adults
Recent incentives provided by the HITECH Act have resulted in rapid growth in the development and implementation of the EHR. Nurse-led studies are beginning to demonstrate that effective use of the EHR can improve outcomes of relevance, such as reductions in pressure ulcers and falls, among older adults. Dowding, Turley, and Garrido (2012) evaluated the impact of an integrated EHR in 29 Kaiser Permanente hospitals on process and outcome indicators for patient falls and hospital-acquired pressure ulcers. They found that the EHR...