ONC brief: HIT has improved patient safety

Health IT has resulted in more benefits than harm, according to a blog post on the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's (ONC) blog, Health IT Buzz.

The increased adoption of EHRs and other health IT has improved patient safety, according to an ONC issue brief, the first of four the agency plans to publish by September. The brief studied four systemic literature reviews and other studies that show how health IT has influenced factors that affect patient safety.

In a blog post about the issue brief, ONC CMIO and Office of Clinical Quality and Safety Acting Director Andrew Gettinger, MD, and Senior Policy Analyst Kathy Kenyon wrote that the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) "To Err is Human" patient safety report recommended "health IT as part of 'redesigned systems of care.'"

The brief found that data-driven technologies such as clinical decision support, EHRs and computerized provider order entry were associated with better adherence to evidence-based protocols; improved capability to monitor conditions and make better-educated decisions about care utilization; and lower rates of medication errors.

A 2011 study that examined health IT and patient safety literature found that about two-thirds of analyzed papers found that EHR implementation and use resulted in "uniformly positive outcomes" and 30 percent found health IT led to more positive outcomes than negative ones.

Gettinger and Kenyon wrote that health IT will never be a silver bullet to reduce unsafe conditions, errors and adverse events,but "is an important part of delivery system reform and redesigned systems of care. Whatever the drawbacks to health IT systems, the evidence suggests that health IT has raised the floor on safety.

The 2000 IOM report was right that this is the path to better patient safety, they wrote. "The widespread adoption of health IT has been a clear benefit to patient safety. We need to continue to work on making health IT even better in a redesigned health system with patient safety and quality its first priority."