EHR Experts

Hospitals and physicians should be required to report data glitches in patients’ electronic health records to a national patient safety organization beginning in 2013, according to the Health IT Policy Committee’s adoption and certification work group, Federal Computer Week reports.

On Monday, the work group considered a draft proposal that evaluated best practices for electronic reporting of glitches. The practices are expected to be incorporated into the second phase of “meaningful use” criteria for EHR systems in fiscal year 2013.

Members of the panel said the goal is to generate a “patient-centered” approach to health IT safety, which includes:

• Confidential reporting;
• Liability protections;
• Whistle-blower protections;
• Patient engagement; and
• Transparency.

Vendor Recommendations

The work group recommended that vendors include feedback buttons in EHRs that allow simple reporting of data problems. In addition, the panel said vendors should keep records of all patient safety concerns reported by customers, provide safety alerts to those customers and build patients safety tests into their products.

Patient Participation

According to the panel, patients should be encouraged to find errors and mistakes in their EHRs and report them by way of feedback buttons.

Formal Study

The panel also recommended that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT commission a formal study on health IT patient safety concerns and on the possibility of audit trails for health data exchange activities (Lipowicz, Federal Computer Week, 3/29).

Above article publish on http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2010/3/30/hhs-panel-providers-should-be-required-to-report-ehr-glitches.aspx?topic=patient%20safety

Filed under: EHR, Electronic Health Records on April 6th, 2010