AHIMA, ECRI partnering on patient safety pilot

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the ECRI Institute are partnering in a pilot project to promote patient safety and quality care through the reduction of health IT risks, and enhancing health IT innovation.

The Partnership for Promoting Health IT Patient Safety will create a national framework to proactively identify and resolve health IT safety issues based on various health IT events and hazards, according to a release. 

AHIMA will join ECRI Institute’s partners including providers, health IT vendors, public policy organizations and other professional organizations to collect and analyze health data and report results to improve patient safety within health IT. AHIMA will support the adaptation and dissemination of lessons learned to its members and other stakeholders.

“Patient safety has always been a top priority for AHIMA and our members,” said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, MBA, RHIA. “AHIMA’s participation in this vital project will help identify current and future patient safety risks. We can then work together to develop strategies to remedy these problems and ideally prevent them from occurring again.”

AHIMA and ECRI are planning to develop resources on health IT hazards including webinars for AHIMA’s members and a special panel discussion during AHIMA’s Annual Convention and Exhibit in San Diego in October.

“We know a lot about usability issues when it comes to health IT. This new effort, though, will look at how to implement technology, how to structure leadership and how to avoid health IT safety risks,” said ECRI Executive Vice President and General Counsel Ronni Solomon.