Using a large-scale panel of U.S. hospitals across health referral regions (HRRs), we empirically examine how a hospital's and its neighboring hospitals' adoption of the Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) (and their meaningful use of CDSS) affects the hospital's quality of care. We find that CDSS adoption significantly reduces a hospital's readmission rate of heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia patients. We also reveal the regional spillover effects of adoption, where neighboring hospitals' CDSS adoption in the same HRR also reduces a hospital's readmission rates. Such spillover effects become more significant with electronic data interchange, facilitating seamless and errorless communications among hospitals. We also show that the spillover effects may depend on HRRs' different market structures and hospitals' meaningful-use status. Our findings offer theoretical and managerial insights for both healthcare researchers and practitioners.

我们使用跨健康转诊地区 (HRR) 的大型美国医院小组，实证研究医院及其邻近医院对临床决策支持系统 (CDSS) 的采用（以及他们对 CDSS 的有意义使用）如何影响医院的质量的关心。我们发现，CDSS 的采用显着降低了医院的心力衰竭、急性心肌梗塞和肺炎患者的再入院率。我们还揭示了采用的区域溢出效应，相邻医院在同一 HRR 中采用 CDSS 也降低了医院的再入院率。这种溢出效应随着电子数据交换变得更加显着，促进了医院之间的无缝和无差错通信。我们还表明溢出效应可能取决于 HRR 不同的市场结构和医院的有意义使用状态。我们的研究结果为医疗保健研究人员和从业人员提供了理论和管理见解。