An Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality report found that health care IT can reduce costs and improve the quality of care received by patients with chronic conditions, Healthcare IT News reports.

The report, released by AHRQ's National Resource Center for Health Information, is based on information collected from AHRQ-funded projects.

The report cited a project that found remote monitoring of patients with congestive heart failure could reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and emergency department visits. In another project cited in the report, researchers found that secure patient-physician messaging can reduce physician office visits, saving patients transportation costs and payers office visit charges for medical services.

However, the report did acknowledge that some projects experienced technical challenges related to the installation and integration of health care IT.

According to the report, few off-the-shelf commercial systems provide comprehensive support for chronic disease management. It adds that projects that did use commercial systems found that they required a significant amount of customization (Manos, Healthcare IT News, 12/3).