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IOM Recommends Steps to Reduce Patient Safety Risks Associated with HIT

Posted November 2011

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report, Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care, containing ten recommendations aimed at reducing potential medical errors associated with the use of health information technology (HIT), including electronic health records, secure patient portals, and health information exchanges, but excluding medical device software. If implemented appropriately, HIT can help improve health care providers’ performance, better communication between patients and providers, and enhance patient safety. However, poorly designed HIT can create new hazards in the already complex delivery of care.

The report emphasizes that both public and private entities play a role in mitigating patient safety risks, and that reporting of patient safety events should be voluntary, confidential and non-punitive for health care providers, but obligatory for vendors. The report calls on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure that vendors “support the free exchange of information about health IT experiences and issues and not prohibit sharing of such information . . . .”

Significantly, the IOM report also recommends that the HHS Secretary request Congress establish “an independent federal entity for investigating patient safety deaths, serious injuries, or potentially unsafe conditions associated with health IT,” similar in construct to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). As with NTSB, this HIT-related entity would not possess any regulatory authority.

IOM recommended that HHS develop a plan within a year to minimize patient safety risks associated with HIT, monitor progress, develop approaches to compile and address safety concerns, and provide stronger oversight of HIT products. The plan would create a new HIT Safety Council funded by HHS and tasked with evaluating criteria and developing methods for gauging and assessing patient safety related to the use of HIT. The report was commissioned by HHS, and will be sent to the Secretary for review and action. Contact: Chelsi Stevens