Assessment of Variation in Electronic Health Record Capabilities and Reported Clinical Quality Performance in Ambulatory Care Clinics, 2014-2017

IMPORTANCE: Electronic health records (EHRs) are widely promoted to improve the quality of health care, but information about the association of multifunctional EHRs with broad measures of quality in ambulatory settings is scarce. OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between EHRs with different degrees of capabilities and publicly reported ambulatory quality measures in at least 3 clinical domains of care. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cross-sectional and longitudinal study was conducted using survey responses from 1141 ambulatory clinics in Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin affiliated with a health system that responded to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Annual Survey and reported performance measures in 2014 to 2017. Statistical analysis was performed from July 10, 2019, through February 26, 2021. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: A composite measure of EHR capability that considered 50 EHR capabilities in 7 functional domains, grouped into the following ordered categories: no functional EHR, EHR underuser, EHR, neither underuser or superuser, EHR superuser; as well as a standardized composite of ambulatory clinical performance measures that included 3 to 25 individual measures (median, 13 individual measures). RESULTS: In 2014, 381 of 746 clinics (51%) were EHR superusers; this proportion increased in each subsequent year (457 of 846 clinics [54%] in 2015, 510 of 881 clinics [58%] in 2016, and 566 of 932 clinics [61%] in 2017). In each cross-sectional analysis year, EHR superusers had better clinical quality performance than other clinics (adjusted difference in score: 0.39 [95% CI, 0.12-0.65] in 2014; 0.29 [95% CI, −0.01 to 0.59] in 2015; 0.26 [95% CI, –0.05 to 0.56] in 2016; and 0.20 [95% CI, –0.04 to 0.45] in 2017). This difference in scores translates into an approximately 9% difference in a clinic’s rank order in clinical quality. In longitudinal analyses, clinics that progressed to EHR superuser status had only slightly better gains in clinical quality between 2014 and 2017 compared with the gains in clinical quality of clinics that were static in terms of their EHR status (0.10 [95% CI, −0.13 to 0.32]). In an exploratory analysis, different types of EHR capability progressions had different degrees of associated improvements in ambulatory clinical quality (eg, progression from no functional EHR to a status short of superuser, 0.06 [95% CI, −0.40 to 0.52]; progression from EHR underuser to EHR superuser, 0.18 [95% CI, −0.14 to 0.50]). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Between 2014 and 2017, ambulatory clinics in Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin with EHRs having greater capabilities had better composite measures of clinical quality than other clinics, but clinics that gained EHR capabilities during this time had smaller increases in clinical quality that were not statistically significant.