Electronic medical records may increase risks of the medical errors they're designed to prevent, according to an Institute of Medicine report.
The report admits that health information technology can improve the performances of healthcare providers, promote better communication with patients and enhance patient safety. However, the report also points out that poorly designed health IT is to blame for medication dosing errors, failures to detect serious illnesses and loss of clinical data, situations that have contributed to many patient deaths and injuries.
As the federal government allocates millions of dollars in incentives for hospitals that voluntarily adopt EMRs before a 2014 deadline, the IOM calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a plan within the next 12 months that addresses patient safety concerns related to the use of health IT and to release annual reports on the plan's progress. The IOM says the FDA should increase its oversight and regulation of health IT if HHS determines that the technology jeopardizes patient safety and that plans to correct its shortcomings fall short.
Health IT vendors must share proprietary safety data more freely and eliminate clauses in sales contracts that place the liability of unsafe EMR features on healthcare providers, advises the report. EMR users should be allowed to voluntarily report errors or patient harm caused by health IT to HHS without fear of retribution, according to IOM. The reporting of patient safety violations should be mandatory for IT vendors, however.
"Just as the potential benefits of health IT are great, so are the possible harms to patient safety if these technologies are not being properly designed and used," says Gail L. Warden, president emeritus of Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and chair of the committee that wrote the IOM report. He believes IT vendors and the government have a shared responsibility to "ensure greater transparency, accountability and reporting of health IT-related medical errors."
Daniel Cook
