patient harm

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A Health Hack Wake-Up Call

Niam Yaraghi | US News & World Report | April 1, 2016

Hospitals went digital almost overnight, but they neglected to prioritize patient data protection. U.S. hospitals appear to be under a new type of IT hacking attack: crypto-ransomware. Hackers have changed their approach and instead of stealing patient data, they are now locking down the computer systems of hospitals and asking for a ransom, in bitcoin, in order to allow hospitals to have access to their own computers...

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Diagnostic Errors Top ECRI Institute’s Patient Safety Concerns for 2018

Press Release | ECRI Institute | March 12, 2018

ECRI Institute names diagnostic errors the number one concern on its 2018 Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for Healthcare Organizations. Each year, approximately 1 in 20 adults experiences a diagnostic error, according to published studies. These errors and delays can lead to care gaps, repeat testing, unnecessary procedures, and patient harm. “Diagnostic errors are not only common, but they can have serious consequences," says Gail M. Horvath, MSN, RN, CNOR, CRCST, patient safety analyst, ECRI Institute. "A lot of hospital deaths that were attributed to the normal course of disease may have been the result of diagnostic error."
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EHRs Contribute to Patient Safety Risks, Communication Errors

Jennifer Bresnick | Health ITAnalytics | February 1, 2016

Electronic health records may not be the only reason why patient safety is put at risk by poor communication and human errors, but they are certainly contributing to the problem, according to a report by CRICO Strategies. The latest patient safety benchmarking report found that 30 percent of the medical malpractice cases filed between 2009 and 2013 involved failures in communication.  More than 7100 of those cases resulted in an adverse patient safety event or patient harm...

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MedStar Research Team Links Electronic Health Record (EHR) Usability Issues to Potential Patient Harm

Press Release | Medstar Health | March 27, 2018

Specific types of electronic health record (EHR) usability issues are associated with a variety of potentially serious patient harm events, according to a study released by MedStar Health researchers with the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare. This study, which was published today by the Journal of the American Medical Association, is the first one of its kind to reach this conclusion, and it underscores the need for more and better collaboration among EHR vendors, providers and health systems, and other stakeholders, as well as a reexamination of federal policies for improved usability.

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On the Need to Improve User-Centered Design (i.e. Design Thinking) for Healthcare IT Usability

The lack of usability of electronic health records (EHRs) and healthcare IT applications, in general, has been in the news a lot again. This time it is a research report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on March 27. The study analyzed voluntary error reports associated with EHR systems and found that problems with EHR usability may have directly resulted in patient harm. Unfortunately, this situation is all too common in the healthcare industry. Numerous health care systems are designed and created ad hoc, or with a very engineering-centric approach. End users are dissatisfied and often systems or workflows are abandoned and/or dangerous work-a-rounds created. A lot of people are saying Healthcare IT needs a disruption. What HealthIT needs is to begin to learn about and understand the needs, goals, and methods of the actual end-users, like doctors, nurses, medical assistants, etc.