Welcome  to  Public  health  moment from  the  University  of  Minnesota. The  use  of  health  information  technology  has  had little  or  no  effect  on  improving  patient  safety. That's  according  to  research  led  by  Jeff  Mccullough, a  health  policy  expert  at  the  University  of  Minnesota. What  is  health  information  technology? Mccullough  explains. Health  information  technology  is a  catchphrase  for  a  whole  bunch  of  different  things. What  people  usually  mean  is  an  electronic  medical  record. There's  been  a  lot  of  research  on  this  topic. The  vast  majority  of  it  involves studies  that  are  done  at  one  hospital. The  problem  is,  they're  almost  all done  at  some  of  the  very  best  hospitals  in  America. What  we've  tried  to  do  is  look  at  the  entire  country. We  have  data  on  virtually  every  hospital  in  the  country, and  we  are  looking  at  these  institutions before  and  after  they  adopt health  IT  and  trying  to  see does  the  quality  change  at  a  national  level. Mccullough  believes  that  more  research  is  needed to  ensure  that  the  technology  is  worth  the  investment. It  does  have  a  lot  of potential  hospitals  are  investing in  this  and  other  healthcare  providers, they  are  going  to  be  some  benefits, but  this  is  also  extremely  expensive. And  there  are  a  lot  of  other  ways  we  could improve  quality  too  without  using  computers. And  what  I'd  like  to  see  is just  a  very  careful  and  thoughtful  look at  when  and  where  is  it  worth the  money  for  John  Finnegan  and  public  health  moment. I'm  Mark  Gerben.