Providers should adopt EMRs - Patient safety - Electronic Medical Records - Brief Article

Health Management Technology, Jan, 2004

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has again taken steps that may increase government involvement in, and over sight of, everyday healthcare delivery. In its November 2003 report, "Patient Safety: Achieving a New Standard of Care," IOM encourages hospitals and physicians to adopt electronic medical records as a major step in preventing medical errors. While the adoption stressed by IOM is voluntary, the organization also backs a national health information infrastructure and information exchange network that could eventually make use of an EMR necessary for participating in national programs such as Medicare.

Authors of the report, who are clinicians, informaticists and health policy experts, have stressed that the architecture they propose represents a public/private partnership. At the same time, the report asserts that the government should set the technical standards for information exchange, tell hospitals which information is necessary to collect about medical errors, and oversee the analysis of errors and near misses. It should also define the kinds of decision support tools that can best assist clinicians when ordering tests and determining treatment plans.

Paul Tang, a California based physician and informaticist who headed the IOM committee that wrote the report, says the healthcare sector needs to operate more like the airline industry. Pilots, he says, have instantaneous access to data about weather conditions, mechanical functions of the plane and airport delays--everything they need to make sound decisions. "In healthcare, no such universal information exists."

While IOM reports are not legal mandates, they carry huge weight. Several years ago, IOM's "To Err Is Human" report drew national and international attention to deaths caused by medical errors. The new patient report is IOM's initial step in trying to resolve the problems identified in "Too Err Is Human."

For more information, visit www.iom.edu