Here Is A Useful Contribution To Consideration of Issues Around Health IT Safety. Worth A Download.

This appeared a little while ago.

A Guide: How to Identify and Address Unsafe Conditions Associated with Health IT

December 5, 2013, 8:46 am
Kathy Kenyon, JD / Senior Policy Analyst , and Steven Posnack / Director Federal Policy Division, ONC

When front line clinicians confront a clinical mishap or unsafe condition in EHR-enabled healthcare settings (such as a medication error or a missed diagnosis) they may not connect the clinical event with how EHR use could have helped prevent it, how misuse or failure to use EHR functionality as intended contributed to the problem, or how weaknesses in EHR configuration, interfaces, or usability contributed.

To help clinicians and other EHR users address health IT-related safety issues, we have posted a guide and slide deck [PDF - 2.7 MB] [PPTX – 3.0 MB] called How to Identify and Address Unsafe Conditions Associated with Health IT, developed by ECRI Institute under an ONC contract.  The guide aims to help healthcare organizations and Patient Safety Organizations (and perhaps health IT technology developers, industry professional associations, and risk management and liability insurance companies) improve reporting of unsafe conditions associated with health IT, EHRs in particular.

This guide is one of a series of tools developed to addresses the potential unintended consequences of health IT as part of our commitment to improving health IT safety based on the Health IT Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan (Health IT Safety Plan).

Both the Health IT Safety Plan and the ONC-sponsored Institute of Medicine report on Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care recognized the need for more reporting of health IT safety events and unsafe conditions, and urged a larger role for Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs), listed by AHRQ, in reporting and follow-up of errors and health IT related events.

Lots more here:

http://www.healthit.gov/buzz-blog/electronic-health-and-medical-records/guide-identify-address-unsafe-conditions-health/

This is a really useful presentation which provides a framework for how to consider risks and better still how to make sure problems are being monitored and responded to.

Well worth a download.

David.