EHR Final White Paper

Electronic health records (EHR) have significant potential to improve safety, but can also make existing risks greater, or introduce new ones. The WPSC recently commissioned a study of these issues; the product (a literature review and report written by two University of Washington graduate students in the Health Informatics and Health Information Management program, Harshada Pradhan and Julia Stokes) has identified major contributing factors, manifestations, and mitigation strategies.

For example, incorrect use of an EHR, while frequently attributed to inexperience, is actually often exhibited by experienced users: some of the contributing factors are time constraints and system design flaws, resulting in workarounds. The full report is available in the For Providers & Others and the Member Resource Library sections of the web site.

Read the entire White Paper by clicking here.