Electronic Health Record and Patient Safety

Abstract

Today the implementation of EHRs is pervasive within the landscape of large and small healthcare institutions to treat, care, and manage population health. Over the last few years, organizations have made great strides in consolidating disparate EHRs across multiple service lines into unified, enterprise level, implementations providing more meaningful, evidence-based clinical decision support with a more cohesive user interface to decrease cognitive overload resulting in safer care. However, patient safety concerns related to the use of EHRs continue to be of paramount consideration. We present two use cases to illustrate the pitfalls, decision model, and possible solutions used to resolve and minimize potential adverse events related to the use of health technology. Our chosen case studies related to medication orders and administration help to point out specific problems, identify multiple causes, and lead to appropriate corrective actions. Application of the sociotechnical model as a tool to identify root causes, flawed workflows and processes ultimately help to improve overall healthcare, safety, and quality of EHRs.