ECRI Institute PSO Releases Health IT Hazard Reporting System

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Oct. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) announces the release of a new Health IT hazard reporting system.  The system utilizes AHRQ common formats and a tested standardized taxonomy for health IT hazard information.

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"Well designed, well implemented health IT has the potential to help healthcare organizations improve care and patient outcomes, but too often health IT is implemented without full understanding of the work environment, and results in risks," says Karen P. Zimmer, MD, MPH, FAAP, medical director, ECRI Institute PSO.

The health IT hazard taxonomy—known as the Health IT Hazard Manager—was developed and piloted in a federally-funded project led by Abt Associates with ECRI Institute and Geisinger Health System's Patient Safety Institute. The ECRI Institute PSO reporting system collects IT hazards via the Internet in a centralized and standardized way, which allows for the identification of specific types of hazards and the ability to trend data.

"It is important to understand the nature of health IT hazards, defined as any characteristic of health IT or its interactions with other systems—including humans—that increases the likelihood of compromised care-process and patient harm. It is equally important to correct health IT systems to reduce or avoid such risks," adds Zimmer.

ECRI Institute PSO integrated the taxonomy into its event reporting platform and is collecting information to help healthcare organizations systematically track the root cause of health IT-related hazards and manage these risks. The hazards collected can help to create safety proactively by finding and fixing health IT-related hazards before they contribute to user errors, care-process compromise, or patient harm.

In early 2013, ECRI Institute PSO issued a Deep Dive on Health Information Technology, which examined adverse events and near misses associated with the electronic health record and related technologies.  ECRI Institute PSO member organizations receive Guidance for Patient Safety toolkits, newsletters and user group meetings, INsight Assessment surveys, and much more. ECRI Institute PSO also shares these learnings publicly through free resources, including the PSO Monthly Brief eNewsletter.

For information about the ECRI Institute PSO, visit www.ecri.org/pso, e-mail [email protected], call (610) 825-6000, ext. 5558, or write to us at 5200 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462.

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About ECRI Institute
For 45 years, ECRI Institute's work in patient safety, adverse event reporting and analysis, and development of recommendations has improved patient care at hospitals and other providers around the world. The ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization is a component of ECRI Institute, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to improving the safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of patient care. ECRI Institute has a long history of investigating events and publishing authoritative risk reduction strategies. ECRI Institute is designated as an Evidence-based Practice Center by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. ECRI Institute developed and implements the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System, a mandatory error and near-miss reporting program for Pennsylvania hospitals and other healthcare facilities, under contract to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, winner of the 2006 John M. Eisenberg Award. For more information, visit www.ecri.org. Find ECRI Institute on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ECRIInstitute) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/ECRI_Institute).

SOURCE ECRI Institute