Flutterby™! : Hospital computerization doesn't save money

Harvard Medical School Study finds computerization does not save hospitals money (PDF):

RESULTS: More computerized hospitals had higher total costs in bivariate analyses (r ϭ 0.06, P ϭ .001) but not multivariate analyses (P ϭ .69). Neither overall computerization scores nor subscores were consistently related to administrative costs, but hospitals that increased computerization faster had more rapid administrative cost increases (P ϭ .0001). Higher overall computerization scores correlated weakly with better quality scores for acute myocardial infarction (r ϭ 0.07, P ϭ .003), but not for heart failure, pneumonia, or the 3 conditions combined. In multivariate analyses, more computerized hospitals had slightly better quality. Hospitals on the “Most Wired” list performed no better than others on quality, costs, or administrative costs.

The conclusion is that computerization might lead to modest improvements in "process measures of quality". From this ComputerWorld article via MeFi, Wired and /..