The American Hospital Association has sent a letter commenting on the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's Health Information Technology Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan.
The AHA supports many principles stated in the plan, including the need for all stakeholders — health IT vendors, clinicians, healthcare organizations and federal agencies — to ensure the safety of health IT systems, and the approach to build on "'existing patient safety efforts across government programs and the private sector,'" according to the letter.
The AHA urged ONC to develop a single, national approach to matching patients to their records. "The inability to match patients across silos raises safety concerns about mismatches — incorrectly matching patients, or missing a match that should have been made," the AHA letter stated. The AHA also called upon ONC to advance the data exchange infrastructure necessary to support health information exchange.
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The AHA supports many principles stated in the plan, including the need for all stakeholders — health IT vendors, clinicians, healthcare organizations and federal agencies — to ensure the safety of health IT systems, and the approach to build on "'existing patient safety efforts across government programs and the private sector,'" according to the letter.
The AHA urged ONC to develop a single, national approach to matching patients to their records. "The inability to match patients across silos raises safety concerns about mismatches — incorrectly matching patients, or missing a match that should have been made," the AHA letter stated. The AHA also called upon ONC to advance the data exchange infrastructure necessary to support health information exchange.
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