ECRI ranks health IT among the top safety uncertainties of industry

While information technology has vast potential to make better the patient results, the ECRI Institute has ranked a health IT-related issue as the top 2016 patient safety concern facing healthcare agencies.

Heading ECRI’s list of this year’s top 10 patient safety worries is “health IT configurations and organizational workflow that don’t support each other.” As ECRI’s report points out, when HIT configuration and workflow clash, communication suffers and can lead to delays in care or even medical mistakes.

That was not the only patient safety concern with a health IT connection, claims Bill Marella, executive director of patient safety reporting systems at ECRI.

“There are a number of topics on the Top 10 list this year that relate to IT, which is a function of the massive investment we have made in electronic health records and other systems,” Marella claims. “The task for us is to optimize them and make certain that they support clinicians rather than detract from their workflow and create more work for them to do.”