A red‐flag‐based approach to risk management of EHR‐related safety concerns

Although electronic health records (EHRs) have a significant potential to improve patient safety, EHR‐related safety concerns have begun to emerge. Based on 369 responses to a survey sent to the memberships of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management and the American Health Lawyers Association and supplemented by our previous work in EHR‐related patient safety, we identified the following common EHR‐related safety concerns: (1) incorrect patient identification; (2) extended EHR unavailability (either planned or unplanned); (3) failure to heed a computer‐generated warning or alert; (4) system‐to‐system interface errors; (5) failure to identify, find, or use the most recent patient data; (6) misunderstandings about time; (7) incorrect item selected from a list of items; and (8) open or incomplete orders. In this article, we present a “red‐flag”‐based approach that can be used by risk managers to identify potential EHR safety concerns in their institutions. An organization that routinely conducts EHR‐related surveillance activities, such as the ones proposed here, can significantly reduce risks associated with EHR implementation and use.