EHRs May Help Save Lives From Sepsis

Erin McCann | HealthIT News | March 21, 2014
Here's another reason why those multi-million dollar electronic health record systems might be finally paying off, in terms of lives potentially saved.

According to new research, EHRs can be used to predict the early stages of sepsis, one of the leading causes of death in the U.S., responsible for killing some 210,000 people each year.

Researchers at UC Davis have found that routine health data – blood pressure, respiratory rate, temperature and white blood cell count – from the EHRs of hospitalized patients can detect the illness earlier in its infancy and help pinpoint what patients are at high risk of developing the disease.