Study Analyzes Causes and Consequences of Patient Overlay Errors

摘要

FOR YEARS, MANY in the health information management (HIM) industry have been aware of the dangerous patient mis-identification problem known as an "overlay." This situation occurs when the incorrect patient is registered/ admitted/documented on another patient's medical record, often completely unbeknownst to clinicians. This has always been dangerous, but with electronic health records (EHRs) the stakes are even higher as patient-level information transcends multiple visits. Imagine a clinician making a care decision using medication or allergy information recorded in the EHR that actually did not belong to that person-the results could be tragic. Because of this, a leading eight-hospital, multi-state healthcare organization began tracking and keeping detailed statistics on overlay errors for five years with the implementation of their EHR. In doing so, they amassed an amazing bank of data from which a recent study was conducted to help glean insight on these overlay errors, including their prevalence, how they are created, how they are caught, and how they might be mitigated.