Tragic Errors: Usability and Electronic Health Records

摘要

The Obama administration's healthcare reform legislation and its $19 billion stimulus support for Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are beginning to have a transformative effect on U.S. healthcare. An important goal will be to use EHRs to reduce the estimated 98,000 deaths and millions of injuries per year from medical errors [1]. Many medical errors are never reported or even recognized; only a small number are analyzed by internal hospital or clinic review boards. Peer review boards typically keep their analyses private, and only a small number of cases per year receive public discussion [2]. This dramatically limits the ability of healthcare managers and designers to learn from errors, make adjustments that improve performance, or develop more effective workflows.