EHRs Can Post Safety Risks to Patients, Report Finds

Poor usability and design flaws of electronic health records (EHRs) can pose safety risks to patients, according to recent studies, writes Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) in a blog post. A recently-issued report urges more oversight and post-market testing to ensure that EHRs don’t inadvertently harm patients. Ongoing safety challenges with EHRs can occur with data entry, alerts, visual display, information availability, interoperability, system automation and defaults, according to the report.

Read more:

• AHCJ: https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2018/09/report-offers-scenarios-on-how-ehrs-can-pose-safety-risks-to-patients-and-what-to-do-about-it/#more-34260
• Electronic Health Record Usability Issues and Potential Contribution to Patient Harm. JAMA. March 2018