Industry Parries Health IT Criticism

A leading health IT industry advocacy group, responding to an Institute of Medicine report that criticizes health IT vendors for not sharing information that could improve patient safety, countered by asserting that the "paper-based health system kills."

Although health IT systems can and should be safer, the Institute of Medicine report, "Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care," should have done a better job of pointing out the ways in which traditional paper-based records threaten patient safety, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) said in its statement issued Thursday.

The Chicago-based group said it already has called for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to launch a number of patient-safety initiatives, several of which it says align with the Institute of Medicine recommendations:

• Developing strategies to identify and prevent unintended consequences from electronic health record functionality and other integrated health IT.
• Launching a patient safety initiative that "supports the dissemination and incorporation of lessons learned" to minimize adverse events.

The group suggested, however, that it could play a similar role by bringing together stakeholders to "uncover and solve real-world problems" and "articulate the perils of poorly conceived or implemented health IT." HIMSS "will use the IOM's report as a lens through which we can further focus our patient-safety initiative to first prevent unintended harm from the use of health IT."

HIMSS also suggested that draft guidance on EHR usability from the National Institute of Standards and Technology be expanded to focus on how "user fatigue and frustration can lead to errors or process workarounds, which are also patient safety issues."