ONC Releases Finalized Health IT Safety Plan

The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology published the final version of its Health IT Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan, an extension of the Institute of Medicine’s 2011 report, Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care.  The  Health IT Safety Plan is intended to help healthcare providers, health IT developers,  patient safety organizations (PSOs)and accrediting bodies broaden their knowledge of health IT safety and ensure that such technology is used to make care safer.

Along with the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, the ONC will be working to:

• Collaborate with PSOs, providers and developers to add a health IT focus to adverse event reporting systems.  In addition, AHRQ will provide guidance as to how PSOs and EHR developers can work together to lower health IT risks.
• Develop tools and resources that will help providers improve reporting of health IT-related events and hazards.
• Support research and development of tools and guidance for using health IT to improve safety and mitigate health IT safety risks.
• Begin development of Common Formats for outpatient care that will enhance reporting of health IT events that occur away from the hospital.

To learn more about the ONC’s Health IT Safety Plan, click here.