Health Information Technology: Improving Patient Safety Outcomes

This essay provides an overview of patient safety in relation to health information technology (HIT). It highlights the dual nature of HIT, acknowledging its potential to enhance patient safety through features like electronic health records (EHRs), clinical decision support (CDS), and computerized provider order entry (CPOE), which can reduce medication errors and improve clinical decision-making. However, it also addresses the risks associated with HIT, such as poor interface design, unclear information display, and inadequate training, which can lead to errors and adverse effects. The essay references studies and reports emphasizing the importance of identifying and mitigating these risks to fully realize the benefits of HIT in healthcare, with a focus on improving care coordination, tracking diseases, and promoting population health.

Running Head: PATIENT SAFETY AND HIT OVERVIEW 1
PATIENT SAFETY AND HIT OVERVIEW
Name
Institution Affiliation

PATIENT SAFETY AND HIT OVERVIEW 2
Patient Safety and HIT Overview
“The goal of health information technology is to inspire confidence and trust in health IT
and health information exchange” Health and Human Services (HHS) goal ensure that patients
have trust in their healthcare and healthcare information technology (Graber, Johnston & Bailey,
2016). There are increased worries on the safety, cost, as well as efficiency of healthcare systems
for the people which have made the national and attention on IT i.e. electronic health records.
This is an important step of solutions enabling the renovation of healthcare administration.
There exist some research and reviews articles that raise concerns on workflow
integration, the design of HER systems or poor implementation and they can paradoxically
facilitate errors of medication, increased mortality, and leads to dissatisfaction to the physician or
can also adversely affect the physician-patient relationship. It should be noted that health IT is
not without risks as suggested by a variety of case studies. It further provides with risk mitigation
strategies which are practically and clinically acceptable.
Substantial reduction of medication errors as well as the clinical decision being made
easily depending on evidence provided. Prescription and other errors that result from unreadable
handwriting are eliminated through the use of EHRs. As part of the clinical decision-making
process, clinicians are provided with best practice guidance and information allergies and
medication of certain patients with capabilities of HIT such as clinical decision support (CDS)
and computerized provider order entry (CPOE). Other support from CDS includes delivery of
care to patients based on clinical procedures like preventive care, immunization, and routine
screening tests.

PATIENT SAFETY AND HIT OVERVIEW 3
Records regarding patients are stored in a central place where they can be accessed in
multiple locations making patients’ health information available as they move across the hospital
facilities. Even where there is a need for patients taken to emergency rooms, the information is
very accessible and is effectively used.
HIT is used more efficiently to track, aggregate and report patients’ data across and
within the organization. This will help Care providers in effectively tracking and managing
hospital-acquired illnesses (McGuire, 2012). Health IT helps in monitoring disease outbreak
which in turn helps in improved population health and identifying widespread threats to health
like cholera epidemics.
In spite of all the safety and care associated with the health information technology, it
also comes with some harm. For instance, it is dangerous if there is the presence of poor
interface or display of unclear information which may lead to clinician causing the error. If the
risks associated with IT are not well identified, and there is lack of coordinated effort to mitigate
the risks, health IT may not give safer care (Rosen et al., 2012). This recognition made ONC
commission an IOM study in determining how the private sector and the government can
maximize the safety of health information assisted care (Gaskin & Richard, 2012).. This effort is
to help the nation be in better position to realize potential benefits of health use of IT. The
committee's report was published November 2011.8. The harm comes with the inability to
understand the operationalization of the IT, lack of knowledge and poor Patients’ informational
feed (Rosen et al., 2012).

PATIENT SAFETY AND HIT OVERVIEW 4
References
Gaskin, D. J., & Richard, P. (2012). The economic costs of pain in the United States. The
Journal of Pain, 13(8), 715-724.
Graber, M. L., Johnston, D., & Bailey, R. (2016). Report of the Evidence on Health IT Safety
and Interventions. RTI International.
McGuire, S. (2012). Institute of Medicine. 2012. Accelerating progress in obesity prevention:
solving the weight of the nation. Washington, DC: the National Academies Press.
Advances in Nutrition: An International Review Journal, 3(5), 708-709.
Rosen, C. J., Abrams, S. A., Aloia, J. F., Brannon, P. M., Clinton, S. K., Durazo-Arvizu, R.
A., ... & Manson, J. E. (2012). IOM committee members respond to Endocrine Society
vitamin D guideline. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 97(4), 1146-
1152.