The ECRI Institute's Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety released a report detailing best practices to reduce errors related to diagnostic testing and medication changes.
The Health IT Patient Safety is a collaborative that brings together clinicians, EHR developers and patient safety organizations, among other healthcare stakeholders.
Its latest work group, chaired by pediatrician and biomedical informaticist Christoph Lehmann, MD, of Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University, released three best practices to improve the use of health IT in reducing incorrect diagnoses related to diagnostic testing and medication changes.
Here are the three recommendations outlined in the report:
- Develop health IT solutions that communicate appropriate information — including data a user might need for accurate interpretation — to "the right people, at the right time, in the right format"
- Implement health IT solutions that track diagnostic results and medication changes, among other key areas of patient care
- Use health IT to document when diagnostic information has been reviewed by a clinician and when a clinician has acted upon this information
The report was funded in part by the science, environmentalism and patient care organization Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. To read the Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety's report, click here.