This Sounds Like Very Good News For E-Health. Some Positive Results.

This appeared a little while ago.

EHRs help California hospitals reduce medical errors

May 6, 2014 | By Marla Durben Hirsch

An electronic health record is one of the primary tools that can decrease the number of medical errors in hospitals, according to a new report published by the office of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California, pictured).

The staff report surveyed 283 California hospitals to determine what they were doing to reduce common medical errors, such as surgical site infections and pressure ulcers, receiving responses from more than half (53 percent). While hospitals are taking many approaches to reduce medical errors--such as minimizing blood transfusion--EHRs figured prominently in the hospitals' efforts to reduce errors.

Some of the identified approaches included:

• Using computerized physician order entry with the EHR to eliminate adverse drug events
• Building a tool in the EHR to document performance and prevent central line bloodstream infections
• Using the EHR to prompt a clinician to order deep vein thrombosis prevention

The hospitals also acknowledged that alarm fatigue was a problem.

…..

To learn more:
- read the report (.pdf)

More here:

http://www.fierceemr.com/story/ehrs-help-california-hospitals-reduce-medical-errors/2014-05-06

This is a very interesting report from the ‘clinical front-line’ where individual organisations are trying interesting Health IT innovations and reporting the differences they can make.

A good source for some evidence based ideas that can be considered.

David.