Contending with coronaries: May HIT be with you

Abstract

Health Information Technology (HIT) is revolutionizing healthcare by serving as the backbone for various decision support activities across the healthcare continuum, particularly within hospital settings. While existing literature highlights its positive impact on patient satisfaction, costs, and quality, its role in complementing other crucial hospital inputs to influence clinical healthcare outcomes has been relatively understudied. In this study, we explore the complementary effects of a specific type of HIT, Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) on cardiac mortality rates (CMR) in hospitals. Though hospital personnel and cardiac medical services (CMS) are pivotal in reducing CMR, CDSS plays a complementary role by providing information and decision support throughout the cardiac care delivery process. Leveraging panel data spanning from 2016 to 2020, our analysis reveals that CDSS complements CMS and hospital personnel in mitigating CMR. These findings provide theoretical insights into the benefits facilitated by CDSS in cardiac care and hold managerial implications for the effective deployment of this technology within hospital settings. Through our analysis, we aim to elucidate the synergistic effects of CDSS, cardiac medical services, and healthcare personnel in improving clinical healthcare outcomes, particularly in the management of cardiac disease.