Hello, Electronic Medical Records? It’s Me, Unintended Consequences.
WASHINGTON — Emergency department information systems (EDIS), a significant focus of both federal legislation and U.S. health care reform, may ultimately improve the quality of medical care delivered in hospitals, but as currently configured present numerous threats to health care quality and patient safety. Two physician work groups in the American College of Emergency Physicians assessed the potential harm lurking in EDIS and make recommendations on how to improve patient safety as these systems are implemented across the country. Their findings were published online Friday in Annals of Emergency Medicine (“Quality and Safety Implications of Emergency Department Information Systems”).
Researchers created clinical scenarios related to four common pitfalls of EDIS use in emergency departments: communication failure, poor data display, wrong order/wrong patient errors and alert fatigue.
removal of “hold harmless” and “learned intermediary” clauses from all vendor software contracts.