HHS group proposes national EHR safety database

A Health and Human Services advisory panel today proposed creating a national database into which clinicians could report patient data errors and unsafe conditions they encountered in their use of electronic health records.

Clinicians could use the system to report instances – noticeably inaccurate patient data or an EHR technical glitch, for instance – that they believed might compromise patient safety.

The idea was one of several preliminary recommendations that the Health IT Policy Committee’s adoption and certification work group discussed March 12.

The group also suggested establishing an organization that could oversee a nationwide EHR safety system and provide other methods for reporting, analyzing and disseminating incident reports.

“The Patient Safety Organization must be able to evaluate the data received from these reports and provide findings that will assist other providers,” said Paul Egerman, a retired businessman who co-chairs the panel and penned its working document.

The idea for a EHR safety system first came up at a Feb. 25 hearing that the workgroup sponsored in which public and private healthcare providers talked about risks to patient safety in the use of electronic health records (EHRs).

Healthcare executives at today’s hearing said safety reporting systems ultimately would improve electronic health record systems and therefore healthcare outcomes.

To accomplish that, the workgroup also suggested safety reporting be considered as a criteria of the certification of EHRs for meaningful use. “The data should be used to influence future certification criteria,” Egerman said.

To encourage providers to report EHR problems that affect patient safety, the group recommended HHS add a provision in Stage 2 of meaningful use requirements that hospitals and physicians report potential hazards and incidents to the database.

Likewise, the ability to make it easy for providers to report problems in data displayed on a computer screen should be incorporated into certification requirements.

This could be a “feedback” button in the system that would notify an analyst in the provider’s organization, for example.

The policy committee will discuss the recommendations at its meeting March 17.

The panel will also ask the committee to explore whether more patient safety oversight is warranted through an entity like the National Transportation Safety Board, Egerman said.

The panel discussed other IT applications that could enhance safety by promoting patient engagement and awareness of their healthcare treatments.

For instance, in addition to the database, patients could help maintain accurate recordkeeping through access to a personal health record (PHR) or by receiving an electronic copy of their summary data after a physician visit.

“Patient engagement plays a major role in identifying errors and preventing problems,” Egerman said.

“It should be easy for patients to point out errors, like in credit cards,” he said, by flagging the incorrect data through a PHR portal to the provider.

The health IT regional extension centers that are now being established will also have a role in patient safety by training providers how to handle and report EHR problems, according to the workgroup’s recommendations.